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Are You Defending Your Good Name Online?

Your reputation online is always important, but during the pandemic it’s spective websites. You can have amazing emp Shop Strategies more vital than ever. Everyone can agree there will be loyees, great DRPs and a lot of repeat customers, but in the end all with Stacey Phillips fewer cars on the road moving foryou have is your reputation. Compeward, as more and more people will tition is healthy, but sometimes peocontinue to work virtually . With more competition fighting ple’s passions make them do things they wouldn’t normally even consiBody Shops Giving Back for less work, a shop’s reputation onder. line will carry more weight, and that’s with Stacey Phillips In 2008, I began writing for when some shady operators might rea growing company that provided red a company to defend its reputation by creating a ton of fake reviews and posting positive things about the negative articles, reviews or blogs off Google’s first page, because 75% During that same period of time, that wanted to pay me well to write fake negative reviews. They had established a ton of bogus emails and online profiles and were targeting comeasier to manage. It is against Yelp’s policies for businesses to request Yelp reviews of their business so it’s he said. “They will remove reviews that violate their policies which include personal attacks and explicit language. However , those need to be reported/flagged by someone so that they can be reviewed and considered for removal.”

How can you continually monitor your online presence? It’s actually not that difficult.

First, perform a search on your shop name in Google, Bing, Angie’s List, Yahoo and other search engines. Delete what you can, including all of your own social networking pages, where you can easily delete your own posts, photos, comments and videos.

Ask people who have posted negative things about you to delete their comments, videos and photos. If they refuse to delete a photo, for example, you can usually untag yourself, so that the photo will not appear in any search including your name.

If there are news articles, blog posts, videos, photos or other mentions about your shop that are unflattering, you can always request the page’ s publisher to remove them. Not everyone will cooperate, but try anyway. If that doesn’t work, or if you can’t get a hold of the people who posted it, push them down in search results by creating positive content.

sort to doing sketchy things, such as “digital privacy solutions.” Their posting fake reviews to disparage the approach was to create a deluge of shop down the street. In one case, a disgruntled forpositive content about an individual or company so any bad things online Tips for Busy Body Shops mer employee wreaked havoc onabout them would be bumped down with Stacey Phillips line for a shop. A body shop owner the ratings. The goal was to get the

My SEMA of all browsers never look past page one, according to Junto Research. with I was also contacted by a company Stacey Phillips

In many cases, the personal approach may be the best way to go. Quietly unfriend people who are apt to post negative things about you, as well as those who have their own damaged reputations to deal with. You don’t want to be linked to anyone with a questionable reputation, because one rotten blueberry can ruin the whole bunch.

On a regular basis, check for any email jokes or other items peopSee Defending Your Name, Page 53

panies identified by its clients. When I asked them if it was illegal, they said Shop Strategies with Vi no, although they admitted it was at ctoria Antonelli Luke Middendorf at WSI Connect in Concord, least immoral, so I opted out. CA, said the best way for a shop to manage Luke Middendorf at WSI Conits online reputation is to proactively request nect in Concord, CA, protects his positive reviews from its customers clients’ online reputations, including fired a tech, who had a couple sons body shops. “We’ve been implementing re Product Innovation

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who were computer whiz kids, and they destroyed the owner’s online with Ed Attanasio putation-building campaigns for almost all of our clients,” he said. “The reputation within months. It went best way for a business to manage from being just business to being its online reputation is to proactively personal, and the shop in question request positive reviews from its cuslost a significant amount of business as a result. tomers. Google and Facebook allow businesses to proactively solicit OE Shop Certification In another scenario, a body shop that was producing subpar work hireviews and there are a lot of automated tools that make the process with Gary Ledoux Trust Only Genuine Kia Parts for Your Repair

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le send to you or share with you onshop to push its bad reviews down the line. much more difficult to work with.” Middendorf said you can’t rely Product Innovation In yet another case that occurred recently, two shops in a small on websites like Yelp to monitor reviews or check for their authenticity. with Stacey Phillips town started manufacturing false “All of the review sites do a

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negative reviews against each other, but in the end Google black-hatted very poor job of combating fake reviews. Most of the time they avowww.hawkinsonnissan.com/ez-parts both of them and took down their reidgetting involved in any disputes,” 40 From the Desk of Mike Anderson OCTOBER 2020 AUTOBODY NEWS / autobodynews.com M-Th 7am-6pm Fri 7am-5pm Sat 8am-4pm