How to manage the reputation of a large company, respond quickly to customer requests and at the same time measure not the number of publications, but real changes in brand perception?
This was discussed at a meeting at u.comms club with Olena Plakhova, who at that time headed the reputation management and marketing direction of the NOVA group of companies (“Nova Poshta”).
Olena shared her team’s experience, talked about approaches to reputation management and explained how communications can affect not only the information field, but also products, processes and audience behavior.
Reputation begins with reaction
One of the principles of the Nova Poshta team is to respond quickly to people’s requests.
According to Olena, the standard response to negative comments and customer requests is no later than 15 minutes.
But speed alone doesn’t solve the problem. The company representative’s response should help the person resolve their issue.
Therefore, it is not the posts or comments themselves that generate negativity. It is much more important whether the company responds and how correctly it does so.
“Why am I doing this?”
In the work of a communicator, it’s easy to get caught up in the task at hand. Olena advises to keep coming back to two questions:
“Why am I doing this?”
“Is this the best way to achieve the goal?”
This approach helps to evaluate not only the result of a particular communication activity, but also whether it really brings the team closer to the set goal.
In the work of Nova Poshta, the team relied on six principles: speed, ease, reliability, humanity, technologicality, and development.
A communicator must know more than their field
Another important principle is continuous learning.
Olena advises communicators to be interested not only in their own field. Other businesses, countries, social processes, and geopolitics help to better understand the context and see the bigger picture.
For the team, this means constant development and a willingness to learn not only about what is directly related to the profession.
Posts are not the main metric
The Nova Poshta communications team did not focus on the number of publications and mentions in the media.
Instead, the team investigated societal impact, resonance, and behavioral changes.
To do this, we used various data sources: focus groups were conducted, social media was analyzed, calls to the call center, and customer feedback was analyzed.
Based on this data, the company’s reputation profile was formed and which component needed to be strengthened so that the brand received the necessary perception.
Further, the communications function could go beyond communications itself: initiate changes to products, approaches, and processes and plan corresponding campaigns.
After implementation, measurements were taken again.
Thus, working with reputation looked like a constant cycle:
research → determine what needs to change → make changes → communicate → measure the result.
The unit of measurement of reputation in this approach is a change in the opinion and/or behavior of society.
Communications should take into account the state of the audience
Separately, during the meeting, they talked about the Ukrainian context.
At the time of the conversation, sociological research showed fatigue as one of the dominant emotions in Ukrainian society.
In such a situation, it is important for brands to consider not only their own business goals, but also the state of their audience.
For the company, this means looking for ways to add motivation and support people in continuing the fight.
Conclusion
Olena Plakhova’s experience at Novaya Poshta shows that reputation management is much more than working with the media.
This is a quick and human response to customer requests, constant audience research, working with data, and a willingness to change not only communication, but also the products and processes themselves.
And most importantly, communications should be linked to a specific goal and result.
