Guarding your online reputation can help small businesses appeal to more customers. But what happens when false testimonials pop up online?
This is the problem that Reputation America wants to solve. Read about the company below in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.
What the Business Does
Helps businesses manage their online reputations.
Founder and CEO Arsenii Katkov told Small Business Trends, “We use legal methods to remove harmful content from the Internet and provide comprehensive reputation management.”
Business Niche
Removing harmful content.
Katkov says, “In 5 out of 10 cases, we manage to find conspicuous removal methods that do not require direct contact with the author or website owner. Usually, we rely on our contacts from different partner resources or use our expertise to compose the request letter to the right person at the right time. In all the other cases, we use advanced negotiation techniques.”
How the Business Got Started
Due to a client request.
Katkov explains, “The story begins in Russia, in the local design studio called SDAA. At that time, some of our clients were the companies from the Russian Forbes list “SOZH Sintez” and Philips. One of the clients once asked if it was possible to delete negative posts from a forum.
“The client built an auto chemical production franchise and was up against competitors. They were posting online about the price of the franchise, claiming it was inflated and unjustified. The company did not know where to go and what to do about this, so we decided to help. We contacted the forum and convinced them to remove the false messages. As it turned out, a dialogue can do a lot.”
Biggest Win
Expanding to new markets.
Katkov says, “In the very beginning, we founded Digital Sharks and openly claimed: removing information is possible, and it is legal. Then the story of Reputation Moscow began – an agency set up to communicate with big clients.
“Later, Digital Sharks was reborn as an information removal service. We believe there hadn’t been anything similar on the market.”
Biggest Risk
Developing new technology.
Katkov says, “Our biggest risk so far is the Leveli.ng review response service. The service works and is constantly improved. We hypothesize about the high market demand for such a product, and the first assessments from test customers confirmed it.
“In addition, we are implementing AI and machine learning into the service, so there is a lot of work ahead.”
How They’d Spend an Extra $100,000
Improving a new offering.
Katkov explains, “We would invest it in developing Leveli.ng – as we mentioned before, this is our greatest risk and the biggest hope.”
Team Tradition
Pizza.
Katkov says, “However trivial it may sound, pizza is the most popular food in our office. We have different occasions for it:
“When employees play board games after work, they will often order pizza. It is someone’s birthday, and they want to treat the team – hello, pizza. We are going out with the team to play laser tag or to a bowling alley – pizza!”
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Image: Reputation America, Katkov
