Finding out a company’s reputation and value proposition is easy: just to a review site and locate the business that interests you. However, many companies still don’t do enough to protect their employer brand by being active on such websites.
As the result, their reputation gets damaged by employees who happened to have a negative experience while working for them. Clearly, such accounts don’t help to recruit talent because many job seekers today read about companies before they contact them.
For example, 74 percent of Glassdoor users reported being interested in a job only if the employer actively manages its employer brand, which is their reputation as an employer. Managing an employer brand on online employer review sites such as Glassdoor, Indeed, and Great Place to Work involves the following activities:
- • Responding to reviews
- • Updating the profile regularly
- • Sharing updates on the work environment, culture, and other aspects interesting to job seekers.
Obviously, having a good employer brand is an important benefit that may help to get more talent. For example, according to LinkedIn, a strong employer brand leads to 50 percent more qualified candidates (and you know how critical talent is for the success of your company), so let’s see how you can use company reviews to improve yours.
Step #1. Create a Profile
Any company that employs a workforce needs to have a profile on review sites to manage its employer brand. It’s a simple and free strategy to allow companies to collect feedback from their former and current employees.
You can skip this step if you already have a profile on employer review sites. Creating a profile allows to post jobs, add mission statement, vision, and perks, and respond to reviews, therefore, you can begin building your reputation as an employer. The process of registration is easy and takes several minutes but you’ll be able to get the information you need to become a better employer.
Step #2: Respond to Reviews
After you’ve established your employer brand ownership, it’s time to get to the business of reviews. Their number depends on how big and popular your company and could reach tens of thousands. For example, McDonald’s has been reviewed more than 19,000 times (in this case, responding to all of them may be difficult, so most employers choose to address negative ones only).
If your business has a manageable number of reviews, however, you should try your best to address as many as you can. Here’s how to do it.
Responding to Positive Reviews
This is often sidelined because many employers think that positive reviews can’t go viral. However, there are some great benefits of responding to these reviews:
- • Attracting new potential employees with meaningful, engaged replies that demonstrate the commitment to become a better employer
- • Boosting customer retention rate
- • Improving employee brand. For example, Glassdoor has Glassdoor Awards to showcase the best employers on their platform.
Writing an actual reply requires following an established pattern to ensure that you’ve got everything covered. Here’s the map you can adapt to each unique positive review.
- • Address the reviewer by name. This technique creates a personal connection + it shows that you care about your customer enough to engage with them on a personal level.
- • Express gratitude. Thank the reviewer for their time! It’s a simple but absolutely necessary step because a reviewer that gave you 5 stars took his or her time to do that. This should be appreciated by saying things like “We appreciate you taking the time to share your experience at our company!”
- • Focus on details provided by the reviewer. If the review contains specific details, it presents an excellent opportunity for you to practice active listening. For example, let’s suppose you’re running a barber shop and received a review describing an excellent work of one of your employees. Here’s a good way to respond: “We’re so thrilled you loved the haircut Mark gave you!”
- • Give immediate value. “Every interaction with your customers should offer them something of value,” recommends Lucy Benton, a writing coach at Prowriting. Let’s continue with the barbershop example: “please let us know if you want to make that haircut even better by refreshing the highlights!”
- • Thank them again. This is the best way to close the response because it shows your gratitude for customer’s loyalty and time to read the message.
Now let’s get to negative reviews.
Responding to Negative Reviews
Even a couple of negative reviews could have big implications on your company’s trajectory. A lack of response to these reviews will make the things worse because it shows your unwillingness to deal with these problems. In other words, it shows that you don’t care.
Here are the steps you should take to respond to a negative review properly:
- • Show your appreciation. Leaving a review requires some time and effort, so make it a priority to thank the reviewer regardless of what they wrote about you.
- • Emphasize the positive. If the review has some positive feedback as well (for example, Glassdoor reviews contain both pros and cons), try to highlight it. This way, you’ll capitalize on the opportunity to amplify something in which your employer brand is strong.
- • Acknowledge and address the issue. Since there’s no point in getting defensive and ruining your reputation, acknowledge that you might be experiencing some challenges but trying to get things right as soon as possible. This’ll demonstrate your commitment to improving.
- • Have a prominent person write the answer. A response from a CEO, for example, is an excellent way to show how serious you are about improving the experience of your employees. Check out this response from Sprout Social CEO Justyn Howard to a negative review (that also follows the other tips described in this section).
Tools for Managing and Enhancing Your Employer Brand
- • Review Trackers. Daily reporting, email alerts, review management, and other tools you need to build your employer brand.
- • Employer Branding For Dummies, Glassdoor Special Edition. A foolproof guide to employer branding created in association with Glassdoor.
- • Template with example responds to Glassdoor reviews. Take a look at the best techniques of replying to reviews on sites like Glassdoor.
The Bottom Line
The tips described above combine the best HR and marketing practices to help you enhance your employer brand effectively. When you implement them, you’ll increase the chances that more candidates will be attracted to your organization.