Some of the toughest laws we have in this country are concerned with libel and defamation. As many people have found to their peril, the reputation of an individual is believed to be one of the most precious things we own. Mess with it and you can very quickly find yourself pitched up in what Phoenix Magazine refers to as The Four Goldmines surrounded by people in gowns and wigs with a money meter ticking as fast as your heart.

In the business world, at both a macro and micro level, corporate reputations are just as valuable although the antics of some companies when it comes to customer service would lead you to believe they take a lax attitude to how they are perceived.

On a national and sovereign level reputation is also important, as anyone trying to attract business to a country with a bankrupt economy will appreciate. BP’s reputation has taken a hit in the USA and even threatens the reputation of President Barack Obama as oil continues to wash up on the Gulf Coast.

The banking crisis has seen the reputations of numerous pillars of corporate society come crashing down as they lined up to throw themselves on the pyre of burnt out ambition and hubris. The whole thing is like a Shakespearean tragedy with the mob howling for blood as our erstwhile heroes are found to have feet of clay. If the key to buying property is location, location, location, the key to ongoing corporate success is reputation, reputation, reputation.

In the research field there has been a lot of reputation based activity recently, some of which has no doubt been prompted by reputational damage experienced by companies like Toyota, Goldman Sachs and others closer to home.

At a conference in the Four Seasons’ hotel Dr. Charles Fombrun of the Reputation Institute made the point that reputation is based on the relationship between what companies say and what they do. If there is inconsistency between the two, reputation suffers. Fombrun makes the point that reputation operates below the line based on the perceptions created as a company pursues its goals. Positive perceptions lead to supportive behaviour amongst customers and other stakeholders which in turn leads to an improvement in a company’s market value. The same can be said for high profile individuals.

The reputational pulse of a company is a measure of the emotional bond you feel with it and the extent to which you trust and admire it. Fombrun makes the important point that having a positive reputation is not necessarily based on being liked. It has more to do with meeting expectations.

In order to gauge the reputation of a company The Reputation Institute measures what they consider the Seven Pillars of reputation; value creation, product and service quality, innovation, leadership, governance, treatment of employees and corporate citizenship. If you have a good reputation seven out of ten people will recommend you and six out of ten will give you the benefit of the doubt in a crisis. A good reputation is money in the bank and that, dear reader, is what it’s all about these days.

UK based Reputation 24/7 produced surveys results claiming that just 1% of UK companies conduct online searches to monitor their own reputations. They check out suppliers and prospective clients but haven’t got the habit of checking out what people are saying about themselves. Blogs, forums and discussion boards are a rich and free source of information about what people think of your company, your customer service, products and brands. Just Google your company or brand name and put words like “rubbish”, “rip off” or “crap” in the search and see what pops up. You might be surprised. According to 24/7, indiscreet revelations by employees using social media platforms such as Blogs and Twitter are becoming a problem in the context of reputation management with all those trigger happy twits out there offloading their emotional baggage.

Still in the UK, The Institute of Customer Service reports that 75% of Brits complain if they get shoddy products or service. Most of their complaints fall on deaf ears. The corporate response to complaints is apparently unsympathetic, uncommunicative and too slow. On a satisfaction scale of one to ten, those interviewed rate UK organisations’ ability to handle complaints at five, which is not bad overall if a certain airline and some celebrity chefs were included in the survey. Around a quarter of organisations listened carefully to the complaint to fully understand the problem (whether they subsequently did anything about it is not reported). A quarter offered an apology and about one in ten took full responsibility for the issue. Presumably the remainder invited the customer to do the honourable thing and “naff off” .

Bloomberg Business Week reports a survey of fifteen hundred CEOs carried out by IBM in the United States which suggests they see creativity as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future. The captains of industry want creativity to disrupt the status quo, disrupt existing business models and disrupt organisational paralysis. It seems the door is ajar for people who have not come through the classical business degree followed by MBA educational process. Maybe now we shall see philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and artists get a seat at the top table which makes sense when you consider that business is about people and not just spreadsheets as we were lead to believe by the dominance of the accountancy and process led culture that has existed for the past couple of decades. The final word comes from “Tom” who in response to the Business week article notes; “as my grandfather always said, I''ll take trustworthiness above all others, hands down. Seems to be the one trait in least supply these days.” And that, in the end, is what reputation is all about.

If you are planning a market research project in the near future, send the brief to colm@theresearchcentre.ie or call us on 01-2886934 to arrange a meeting so that we can find out what you need and how we can go about meeting your objectives.

Our combination of enthusiasm, experience and competitive costing will make sure you get the understanding you need from the research process.

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