Why Large Enterprises Are So Bad At Review Management

[Garrett Sussman]

Why Large Enterprises Are So Bad At Review Management

They're horrible at it.

When it comes to online reviews, most large enterprises are terrible.

At first glance this doesn't make sense. These massive corporations attract some of the best employees. They have massive budgets and resources that smaller companies don't.

They have everything they need to win the online review game. So why are they struggling?

• Their listings aren’t set up or claimed
  
• There’s a small amount of reviews, sprinkled across review sites
• Low aggregate ratings
• No one takes the time to respond to customers who are unhappy or in need of support
• When someone does respond, they use generic corporate speak

So your enterprise needs to eliminate every, single department then?

Itself.

Large enterprises have massive amounts of resources, talented people and often times, incredibly detailed knowledge about their customers.

None of that matters.

Because enterprises struggle with a predictable and inevitable problem. Eventually, every small business that grows into an enterprise will face the same exact problem.

I'm talking about corporate silos.

As a company grows it's split into departments (e.g. marketing, legal, engineering, etc.). These departments exist in most organizations regardless of their size. They're necessary, but they also create a significant problem.

They create silos.

What specifically is a corporate silo? A corporate silo refers to the barriers that exist between two or more departments. While departments are necessary and helpful, silos are destructive and bad for the overall well-being of an enterprise.

Andrew goes on to explain 4 key strategies for amazing enterprise reviews.

Does anyone have large enterprise clients? How do you get past the challenges of the corporate silo?

Read Andrew's full post here.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Garrett,

I have not clicked through to read the full post yet - can't wait.

But 1st thing that came to mind for me is that the review piece would be terribly difficult to manage at scale, unless they have a tool like Grade.Us to help them view and manage all the locations. I assume some of them, if they are not tuned into the importance of reviews yet (how could they not be!) then have just not set up the right system to manage them.

Just read it, and see how it could get so complicated in large enterprises.
Think the bullets under this statement are important to realize:

"Departments that are actually involved in ORM decisions conflict with each other."

I think agencies that deal with large clients really need to understand the complexity here.

 

[Garrett Sussman]

Thanks for the reply, Linda!

I agree, one of the keys to large organization is proper governance, people knowing their roles, and strong communication across departments. There's no perfect solution, but Andrew does a great job of navigating it in his article.