How to choose the best reputation management company

Choosing the best reputation management company for your business can boost your online reputation, amplify positive feedback, and effectively handle any negative remarks. 

In a recent Birdeye study, 78% of respondents agreed they would avoid businesses with a poor online reputation. Customers today heavily depend on online review sites, public forums, and social media channels when choosing businesses. 

Here’s a guide on choosing the right reputation management company for your business in 2023, featuring a list of the top 7 reputation management companies.  

What is reputation management?

Reputation management is the process of shaping public perceptions of a brand. It’s about fostering positive brand awareness, growing favorable public sentiment, and addressing any negative impressions. 

Managing company reputation is a complex process that requires businesses to stay alert and be aware of everything their customers and competitors say about them, both online and offline. 

How companies manage their online reputation determines their ability to grow in a competitive market. With the right reputation management company, businesses can proactively collect positive feedback across various channels, rather than merely reacting to negative reviews. 

“I reviewed over 20 different offerings. Most survey or review software companies either provide enterprise-wide full-function survey software for a hefty price or just reputation management with limits on data. Birdeye offers surveys and review requests for a fair price. Support is great. We love the system.”
- Rob Loveless, National Storage Affiliates Trust

Why should you hire a reputation management company?

Hiring a reputation management company helps businesses focus on their core operations while allowing experts to step in and handle their reputation management. 

Reputation management involves monitoring multiple channels and constantly collecting, responding to, and analyzing customer feedback. A dedicated reputation management company can automate repetitive tasks, ensuring your brand maintains a robust reputation in the market. 

Some benefits of hiring an external reputation management company for your business include: 

1. Higher volume of leads from online channels
2. Proactive management of negative feedback 
3. Market positive sentiment 

Let’s explore these benefits in detail so that you can make an informed decision. 

Higher volume of leads from online channels 

With a reputation management system, customers will first see all your company’s positive reviews and mentions on online channels, especially local search and social media. This encourages them to engage with your business. 

Proactive management of negative feedback 

Reputation management companies can flag negative reviews or social media mentions as soon as they go online. This helps businesses to immediately connect with the customer, address their concerns, and reduce the impact of that negative feedback. 

While businesses can’t avoid getting negative feedback, finding and managing it immediately reduces their impact. 

Market positive sentiment 

The ideal scenario is that when potential customers search for your business online, they see a large volume of positive feedback and good reviews. But this doesn’t happen automatically. Businesses must consciously track and take steps to share the positive feedback they receive across all channels. 

Online reputation management companies like Birdeye can help businesses scale their review marketing efforts with automation. Our tools allow you to share 5-star reviews on your social media profiles with a click of a button. 

What services does a reputation management company provide?

A business reputation management company primarily provides these services for companies to keep track of how the public perceives the brand: 

1. Monitoring brand mentions 
2. Automating review management 
3. Mitigating issues with the brand 

Delving deep into each of these services can help you understand the scope of a reputation management company, as you proceed to hire one. Let’s explore these in brief. 

Monitoring brand mentions 

Using the latest AI technology, companies like Birdeye leverage social listening to discover what people say about your brand. You can customize reports (what you want to know, how often you want to know, where you want to “listen,” etc.) and alerts to stay on top of brand reputation.

Automating review management 

Reputation management companies help businesses stay on top of their review collection, management, and marketing processes. 

They assist in: 

• Automating review requests so that every customer interacting with your business receives a prompt to share their reviews. According to experts, automating review requests and sending periodic reminders has helped businesses triple the reviews they receive every month. 
• Helping businesses see all the reviews they receive across channels using simple dashboards. This way, businesses can respond to reviews, identify concerns, and share positive reviews online. 
• Flagging any fake or spam reviews so that it doesn’t impact their reputation. 

Mitigating issues with your brand

You can’t please everyone, but it’s frustrating when negative customer feedback reaches the internet. They’re well within their rights, but you must respond quickly and carefully. One wrong move or response, or lack thereof, could spell reputation disaster. 

With a reputation management company, you can immediately know any negative (or even neutral) reviews, learn why the customer wasn’t delighted, and attempt to resolve the issue.

If the negative feedback has the potential to become a universal problem, you can handle negative reviews before they escalate. 

Services provided by online reputation management companies

Now that we know how important it is to hire a company for online reputation management, it is time to know how to choose one. 

The top reputation management companies provide various services that allow businesses to build a positive reputation in the industry. Some top services in that list are: 

1. Review generation and management 
2. Integration
3. Social media management 
4. Social listening 
5. Listing management 
6. Competitor monitoring 
7. Analytics

Let’s take a brief look at what these services are. 

Review generation and management

Birdeye research shows that customers do not interact with a business without reading 2 to 5 reviews. Your online listings on Google and other niche review websites must have relevant, recent, and high-quality reviews. 

Online reputation management companies simplify the review generation and management processes by automating Google reviews, niche website services, and a unified dashboard to monitor and respond to reviews and share positive reviews on other channels. 

Integration

To send review requests to all your customers and track their business engagement, your reputation management software must integrate with the tools you already use to manage customer information. 

Social media management 

40% of consumers use social media to find a local business. Managing your social media presence by sharing positive reviews online, responding to negative comments, and promoting user-generated content is an essential service that every reputation management company must provide. 

Social listening 

Monitoring the internet for positive and negative mentions of your business is vital to reputation management. Only when you know what customers say about you can you respond/manage it in your favor. Social listening tools monitor brand mentions and send alerts whenever necessary. 

Listing management 

Birdeye research shows that 71% of consumers reported having a negative experience because of incorrect local business information found online. Reputation management companies help businesses update all local listing directories and maintain consistency across all sites. 

Business listing management is a crucial part of managing a business’s reputation. 

Competitor monitoring 

Often, boosting and managing your reputation also entails monitoring your competitors’ performance. Most corporate reputation management firms help businesses set up systems to monitor competition and anticipate issues before they become concerns. 

Analytics

Reputation management is also customer management. By knowing your business’s strong points, weaknesses, and potential customer pain points, you can rectify them before they become a reputation issue. 

Strong analytical tools that collect customer feedback and analyze conversations and reviews are a must-have for reputation management. 

Top 7 reputation management companies online

There are several options when considering a reputation management company, and they all made this list because they have certain qualities that make them stand out from others on the market. 

However, no one can do it all – or can they? 

Read on to learn more about the features, pros, and cons of the best reputation management companies online.

1. Birdeye

Birdeye is an all-in-one customer experience and reputation management platform that helps local businesses improve their online reputation by providing improved digital interactions. 

The platform uses the latest technology to give its customers an unfair market advantage. Birdeye’s features help businesses build customer experience-centric processes and scale with ease. 

The recent launch helps small and large companies leverage AI in reputation management, review management, customer feedback management, and social media management with BirdAI.

• Services provided: 

1. Review management to acquire new reviews, respond to reviews, and share positive reviews online 
2. Managing online listings to ensure NAP (Name, address, and phone number) accuracy and maintain a solid online reputation 
3. Improving customer experience with AI-powered chatbots
4. Creating location-wise web pages to help customers find you easily 
5. Connecting with customers via text messages and improving customer experience 
6. Managing multiple social media channels across various locations from a single dashboard 
7. Booking, managing, and growing appointments for your business 
8. Making payment collection more manageable and more secure 
9. Collecting and analyzing customer feedback with AI-powered surveys 
10. Growing your business with referrals 
11. Managing customer complaints and negative feedback with a ticketing system 

• Target business: The platform serves local businesses in the customer service industries, like dental, healthcare, real estate, financial services, legal, automotive, retail, hospitality, storage, insurance, home services, restaurants, and personal services.
• Pricing: The company offers three pricing tiers – Starter, Growth, and Dominate. Each tier pricing is customized depending on your individual needs and the number of locations. 
• Pros:
  • Birdeye has a transparent pricing structure that the company customizes per your needs. 
  • Customers get a free demonstration of the reputation management products.
  • The business has unique solutions for social media, texting, message management, appointments, and listings specifically designed to improve the reputation of multi-location businesses. 
  • Birdeye embraces technology, utilizing automation and AI to make clients’ lives easier. 
  • Many tools are proprietary, so we’ve developed them especially for our customers.
  • The company has an excellent support team that guides businesses right from onboarding to ensure they get the most out of the tools. 
  • Birdeye is the most integrated tool in the market for all Google products. So, if you want to grow on Google, you need this. 
  • Birdeye has a local SEO audit tool that businesses can use to identify gaps in their listings, reputation, and local map pack results. 
  • Birdeye has 2,238 reviews and 4.8 stars on the business software and services reviews website, G2. It is an award-winning AI-powered solution built from the ground up for multi-location business reputation management. 

• Cons:
  • Birdeye is best suited for businesses that rely on reviews and organic search results to build their business. Businesses that do not need organic local SEO or reviews to grow may not get much use of the many features of the product. 

“Birdeye is the best reputation management tool, while others offer similar features there is no comparison when it comes to user support, assistance and having a personal team ready to help your team on a daily basis.”
Jennifer Just, Eldorado Resorts Inc.

2. NetReputation

NetReputation was founded in 2014 to help individuals and businesses manage their online reputations. They help with publishing, promotion, content creation, and content removal.

• Services provided: NetReputation offers content removal, reputation monitoring, reputation management, internet privacy, branding, Wikipedia page solutions, review management, public relations, SEO, and social media management.
• Target business: This company helps individuals, as well as those in the legal, senior living, automotive, construction, retail, healthcare, and cryptocurrency industries. They advertise themselves as available to assist “VIPs,” which includes executives and public figures.
• Pricing: NetReputation doesn’t offer any upfront pricing, as each campaign is different and requires individual consultations. However, G2 lists their pricing as between $1,500 and $10,000+.
• Pros:
  • The company is versatile. They offer multiple services for multiple industries.
  • They are experienced in reputation repair.
  • NetReputation is ideal for businesses looking to remove negative or damaging content from the internet and for doing damage control. 
• Cons:
  • NetReputation takes a more reactive stance. They talk a lot about making negative content disappear rather than preventing it.
  • It can take a while to see results. 

3. SEO Image

SEO Image has been around since 2002 and is headed by Alan Rabinowitz. The company handles SEO optimization as well as online reputation management. They use SEO to ensure the first thing your potential customers and clients see when browsing the internet is something positive.

• Services provided: This company’s main claim to fame is its “push-down” service, which involves pushing negative content off the first page of search engines. They also offer SEO optimization and social media marketing services to attract more clientele.
• Target business: SEO Image serves individuals, businesses, lawyers, and doctors.
• Pricing: Again, there is no upfront pricing available. You must fill out a form and request a quote.
• Pros:
  • They offer a free mini-analysis of your website.
  • Small businesses looking to leverage SEO to boost their reputation can consider this business. 
• Cons:
  • It can take up to six months to see results from SEO Image.

4. Thrive

Thrive was founded in 2019 and focuses on reviews – getting reviews, sharing positive reviews, and managing negative ones.

• Services provided: Thrive offers review site integration, a website review widget, text campaigns, and email feedback request automation.
• Target business: Thrive claims to work for all industries, but they focus on home services, medical, franchise, legal, and small business.
• Pricing: Thrive’s pricing is available in their Watch Demo section. The Standard Tier is $299 and offers messaging, review management, and review response services. The Professional Tier is $399 and adds listings and webchat services. The Custom Tier adds surveys, ticketing, insights, and benchmarking and requires a custom quote request to be sent.
• Pros:
  • Thrive offers a free demo of their services.
  • By reviewing detailed case studies, potential customers can understand what to expect.
• Cons:
  • Thrive focuses heavily on reviews, but there is more to reputation management. You’ll want to look elsewhere for a truly comprehensive reputation management experience.

5. Inbound Junction

Inbound Junction has been in the internet marketing field since 2006. Their team includes ex-journalists, PPC experts, SEO experts, content strategists, and editors.

• Services provided: This company provides public relations services, SEO, content amplification, thought leadership, reviews, online reputation management, and link building.
• Target business: Inbound Junction serves B2B SaaS, B2C SaaS, and blockchain companies.
• Pricing: Pricing is based on a free consultation..
• Pros:
  • Inbound Junction is relatively low risk. They claim they don’t get paid if their campaign is unsuccessful..
• Cons:
  • This is a very niche marketing and online reputation management company. They probably aren’t the right fit if you aren’t in the technical industry.

6. Gadook

Gadook was founded in 2011 and offers everything from personal reputation management to corporate web design.

• Services provided: Although they prominently mention reputation management, Gadook is available for just about any online service you can think of. These services include web design, video creation, search engine optimization, dispute resolution, and more.
• Target business: Gadook serves individuals, professionals, and businesses.
• Pricing: This company is upfront about its pricing, which we like to see. Reputation management services begin at $750 for individuals, $1,000 for professionals, $1,250 for businesses, and $2,000 for corporate reputation management.
• Pros:
  • Gadook is a one-stop shop for any online marketing need.
• Cons:
  • They take a reactive rather than proactive approach, focusing more on what they can do once a business has bad reviews instead of preventing them from occurring.
  • They are a jack of all trades – which may make customers wonder if they’re masters of none.
  • They offer more marketing services than reputation management services.
• Reputation: Gadook has a 5-star rating based on one G2 review.

7. Webimax

WebiMax was founded in 2008 by marketer and web entrepreneur Kenneth Wisnefski.

• Services provided: This company specializes in reputation management, SEO, PPC marketing, public relations, social media marketing, review management, local marketing, lead generation, and web design.
• Target business: WebiMax doesn’t specify a target group. 
• Pricing: WebiMax offers a free quote and analysis for their services, but no prices are listed on their website.
• Pros:
  • They offer a free custom marketing strategy.
  • They are known for good customer communication.
• Cons:
  • WebiMax doesn’t offer an upfront cost for any services on their website.
  • They require potential customers to make contact to get basic information

How to choose the best online reputation management company for your business

Every business has different needs for reputation management:

• Some look to build a reputation online
• Some look to combat the negative reputation

The right reputation management company would depend on what you require to build a robust online reputation for your business. 

The ideal process to choose the right online reputation management company for your business is to:

1. Define business goals for reputation 
2. Evaluate the experience and expertise of the company
3. Understand customer support modes
4. Look for customizable solutions 
5. Evaluate pricing

Define business goals

Have a clear idea of what you want from your reputation management company. Decide what your reputation management pain points are. 

From there, you can begin to explore solutions for those pain points. 

Consider business growth objectives, like expanding into new markets or offering additional products. You’ll want a reputation management company that can accommodate those growth goals. 

It’s perfectly fine to have multiple goals, in which case you’ll want a versatile reputation management company like Birdeye. Evaluate experience and expertise

• Consider online reputation management company reviews. 
• Determine how long the reputation management company has been in business. 
• Then, explore if it’s rated highly and what gives the provider the right to identify as an expert. 
• You don’t want to use a reputation management solution that doesn’t have a robust online reputation for itself. 

For example, Birdeye is trusted by more than 150,000 businesses, has won multiple awards, and has a team that is an alum of leading tech companies. 

Understand customer support modes

Different customers expect different levels of support.  You can only serve your customers well if your reputation management team is available to customize solutions, address queries, and always provide support. 

Birdeye’s support team is known for its 24×7 availability to customers, detailed onboarding process, and consistent technical support to help customers leverage all the tools to their fullest. 

Look for customizable solutions

The goal of any reputation management company should be to attract, convert, and retain customers. The actions it takes to achieve this will vary in each industry. And those reputation management solutions today might change over time and as your business grows. So, a reputation management company with customizable solutions is a must. 

From dashboard templates to data reports and email branding, Birdeye lets you decide which services and styles are relevant to your business. Additionally, our solutions are dynamic so that we can grow with your ever-changing business landscape.

Evaluate pricing

Look for a reputation management company that offers multiple pricing options and customized services. For example, Birdeye has three levels with different corresponding services. All include payments, unlimited users, contacts, integrations, support, campaigns, team chat, and the mobile app. 

From there, you can choose from the following three options.

• Starter for help with reviews, listings, and messaging.
• Growth for access to social media services.
• Dominate to add referrals.

We use this system to help us provide the best patient service we can. It gives us insights into patient needs and wants. We find it to be the most cost-effective reputation management tool on the market. Birdeye is terrific for sharing patient comments on a website and social media!
Danica Lowe, Blue Ridge Orthopaedic & Spine Center

FAQs about reputation management companies

Streamline reputation management with Birdeye

A good reputation management company can help local businesses increase their review volume, establish a presence on listing directories, improve local SEO rankings, manage their social media profiles, and so on. 

Hiring the right reputation management company for your business can ensure that the customers see the positive reviews and brand mentions when they search for you. This is crucial! 

Birdeye’s all-in-one platform changes how companies manage online reputation by simplifying every aspect of online reputation management. Improve ratings, respond to reviews, offer 24/7 customer service, accept payments, schedule appointments, and more with Birdeye’s user-friendly tools.