In 2008 the world saw how quickly things can get out of hand in the world of finances. This 2008 financial crash changed the public perception of financial institutions and most of them have been working ever since to rebuild this reputation. But despite that today most people still put their fate in the hands of these institutions and shy away from new FinTech apps and websites. Does not matter if these FinTech companies offer better services or whatsoever more people still believe in traditional banks and financial institutions.

Why is that?

There are different reasons which give this huge trust to traditional banks over the new FinTech companies, one of the reasons being history. Whenever we are investing or putting our money into something, we want to make sure that there are always two things present. We want to invest our money somewhere where we are guaranteed a safe investment and the place we are putting our money is as trustworthy as it comes. Both of these come from experience and traditional banks and financial institutions have been around for hundreds of years which give them this robe of trustworthiness. Yes this might be true to some extent and banks can offer really good services, but with the developments in the FinTech industry, there are now numerous FinTech companies that offer services not too different or in some cases even better than traditional banks and they are changing future of traditional banking. Because of this these companies should take good care of their online reputation and manage it to the best of their ability.

What is online reputation management and how is it used?

Online reputation management or ORM is when companies engage with potential customers who rely on search engines to find the best available services for them. If the company has a strong online reputation it guarantees that their listings are accurate along with giving them the ability to hear from their customers and improve their services. This reputation is usually grown from reviews and feedback and there are sites such as investingreviews.co.uk that offer people reviews of different FinTech companies. These reviews are a mixture of their own and those written by customers themselves. Most investors visit these kinds of websites to gain more understanding of each company and because of that, every FinTech company should make sure that their online reputation is high so they will stand out among the list of all other companies.

Online reputation management consists of three elements and these elements are getting found, getting chosen, and getting better.

Companies should always monitor their customers and understand through which channels they found about this FinTech company. This is usually done through Google search and social media platforms. Because of this, FinTech companies should always strive to improve their profiles in these channels in order to attract more customers to at least visit their website or download the app. 

Once these companies find which channels are being used by people to find out about their services they need to build mechanisms that will guarantee that they will be chosen. One of the most important things that these FinTech companies are looking for are reviews made by customers. Whenever you are investing your money into something you always like to hear the experiences of others and how their investment turned out. Because of that companies should always make sure that the feedback and reviews are always positive and those that are negative should always be addressed and resolved. This is not only for FinTech companies but every single company should build a platform where customer engagement is strong.

Improving is the last step these companies should take, in order to retain the customers that they worked so hard to attain. These reviews alongside helping companies to attract new customers give them the possibility to learn how they are perceived and what needs improvement. Loyalty is not something that is common in FinTech and in the whole financial world. Customers gravitate toward companies that offer the best services and because of that competition for offering better services is always fierce between FinTech companies. That is why almost every company tries to collect different information and data from customers, so they will be able to find weaknesses and possible solutions and improvements.