Reputation Management Playbook
Audits, defends and rebuilds how a brand looks online (ratings, reviews, search results and local press) for Ugandan and East African businesses, from a weighted reputation score through to a 90-day recovery plan.
Use When
- Audit what people see when they search the company name: ratings, reviews, press and forums, with a reputation score and red flags.
- Angry customers are posting after a service failure or billing mistake: reply templates for negative and positive reviews, who answers, and when to bring in legal or PR.
- Push down damaging search results with stronger content and Google Business Profile authority.
- Plan a recovery: stabilise in the first two weeks, run a review drive, publish positive content and keep monitoring by month three.
- Handle East African specifics: reviews sent by WhatsApp, Facebook recommendations versus Google reviews, local press, and Uganda DPPA 2019 limits on using customer data.
Do Not Use When
strategy-ewom-reviews for review generation, testimonials and referral programmes when nothing is wrong.playbook-crisis-communications for a fast-moving incident with media attention.meta-social-listening for setting up ongoing mention and sentiment monitoring.- Stop before posting fake or paid-for reviews, threatening reviewers or asking platforms to remove content without evidence and client approval.
Required Inputs
| Artefact |
Source/provider |
Required? |
If absent |
| Business name, industry and country/city |
Client |
Yes |
Default the market to Uganda/East Africa; stop if the business cannot be identified. |
| Current star ratings and review counts on Google Business Profile, Facebook and other active review profiles |
Client; incognito search and platform pages |
Yes |
Run the audit checklist from public pages and mark any platform you cannot see not assessed. |
| Negative press, viral complaints and incidents in the last 24 months, with how they were handled |
Client; local press search |
Yes |
Search the five local outlets and record "none found" with the date searched. |
| Focus: Proactive, Reactive or Recovery |
Client lead |
Yes |
Derive it from the weighted score (below 3.9 means Recovery) and label it provisional. |
| Lawful basis and consent record for customer contact data |
Client data owner |
For review outreach |
Hold all review-request outreach; deliver the audit and response protocols only. |
| Response owners, named contacts and approval limits |
Delivery owner |
For execution |
Produce templates as drafts with placeholder owners; do not post replies. |
Workflow
- Ask the intake questions and confirm the focus (Proactive, Reactive or Recovery); stop if the business, market or response owner is missing. See the method.
- Run the audit checklist across Google Business Profile, Facebook, other directories and page-1 search results before recommending anything.
- Calculate the weighted score (GBP 50 %, Facebook 30 %, other platforms 20 %), read it against the bands below and tick the red flags.
- Build the proactive layer: WhatsApp review requests, positive-review replies, GBP authority actions and the monthly reputation content mix.
- Build the reactive layer: the complaint decision tree, negative-review protocol, suppression list where negative results rank on page 1, escalation thresholds and the do-not-do list.
- Where the score is below 3.9 or a significant incident has occurred, lay out the 90-day recovery plan (Week 1–2, Week 3–4, Month 2, Month 3) with owners and dates.
- Check every outreach step against Uganda DPA 2019 consent and every reply against platform review policies; stop and escalate to legal or
playbook-crisis-communications when a threshold is met.
- Run the quality and anti-slop gates; correct any failed template or action and rerun the check before hand-off.
Score bands
| Weighted score |
Reading |
Response |
| 4.5–5.0 |
Strong |
Maintenance and volume growth |
| 4.0–4.4 |
Acceptable |
Targeted improvement |
| 3.5–3.9 |
Weak |
Proactive recovery required |
| Below 3.5 |
Critical |
Launch the reputation recovery plan |
Outputs
| Artefact |
Consumer |
Acceptance condition |
| Reputation audit table with weighted score and red flags |
Client owner |
Every platform in scope has a rating, count and date or is marked not assessed; red flags ticked before any recommendation. |
| Review request and response templates (WhatsApp request, positive reply, 1-star reply) |
Client response team |
British English with an East African tone; personalised fields marked; no public offer of compensation. |
| Complaint, escalation and suppression protocol |
Client owner; legal or PR adviser when triggered |
Each escalation threshold names its trigger and the owner who takes over. |
| 90-day recovery plan or maintenance cadence |
Client owner and delivery team |
Each task has a responsible party, channel and timeline; plan depth matches the stated focus. |
Evidence Produced
| Evidence |
Format |
Acceptance condition |
| Page-1 search baseline (titles and URLs) with the search date |
Table or screenshots |
Recorded in Week 1 and re-run at month 3 for comparison. |
| Review outreach tracker |
Spreadsheet: name, date sent, date reviewed, platform |
No contact is listed without a recorded lawful basis. |
| Escalation and evidence log for coordinated attacks or false claims |
Dated log with screenshots |
Evidence is preserved before any report or response. |
Capability and Permission Boundaries
Read and search only; analysis is read-only. Publishing, spend, live account changes, outreach and personal-data processing need explicit, action-specific client authority. Posting replies, sending review requests and reporting content to platforms each need that authority separately.
Degraded Mode
Without current ratings and page-1 search results, return the narrowest qualified result and mark the affected checks not assessed. The response templates, do-not-do list and escalation thresholds can still be delivered as drafts.
Decision Rules
| Condition |
Action |
Failure or risk avoided |
| A damaging claim is credible and unresolved |
Preserve evidence, respond proportionately and move resolution to the right owner |
Defensive deletion that compounds distrust |
| A public complaint appears |
Acknowledge publicly within 2 hours, move to a private channel, resolve within 24 hours where possible, close publicly |
A visible unanswered complaint that lowers trust more than the complaint itself |
| Weighted score below 3.9 or a significant public incident |
Run the full 90-day recovery plan and fix the operational root cause first |
A recovery that fails because the cause is still live |
| A negative result ranks on page 1 of Google for the business name |
Start the prioritised suppression list and track weekly; expect 60–120 days |
Promising quick removal of search results |
| False factual claims in press or on a high-traffic platform, or defamation |
Engage a lawyer before responding publicly; do not counter publicly |
Legal exposure from a public rebuttal |
| Several 1-star reviews in a short window from accounts with no other activity |
Treat as a coordinated attack: document evidence and report to Google |
Answering fake accounts one by one |
| Crisis with media coverage |
Hand over to playbook-crisis-communications immediately |
Managing a media crisis through review-response protocols |
| Review outreach is proposed |
Confirm Uganda DPA 2019 lawful basis and consent; never offer incentives or use bought lists |
Privacy breach and review-policy violation |
Quality Standards
- A completed audit table with a weighted score and documented red flags comes before any recommendation.
- At least one customised WhatsApp review request and one Google review response template, both in British English with an East African tone.
- Proactive and reactive components are balanced to the stated focus: a recovery-stage client gets the full 90-day plan; a maintenance-stage client gets a content cadence and review system.
- Uganda DPA 2019 is named explicitly wherever review outreach is recommended, with a clear compliance checkpoint.
- Specific local publications and platforms for the Ugandan/EA context are named, not generic global examples.
- A concrete, prioritised suppression list is included whenever negative search results are identified.
- Escalation thresholds are explicit: the consultant knows exactly when to move from social media response to legal or PR intervention.
- Every action item is assignable, with a responsible party, a channel and a timeline.
Anti-Patterns
- Arguing with a reviewer or complainant in a public thread. Fix: acknowledge, move to a private channel and close publicly once resolved.
- Offering a refund, discount or free service in a public reply. Fix: make any compensation offer privately.
- Deleting a Facebook complaint comment. Fix: leave it and respond; deletion is logged, can be screenshotted first and signals guilt.
- Asking friends, staff or associates to post positive reviews to counter negative ones. Fix: run the genuine review drive; counter-posting is review manipulation and breaks platform policies.
- Ignoring a negative review in the hope it disappears. Fix: answer it with the negative-review protocol.
- Offering incentives, discounts or gifts in exchange for reviews. Fix: ask within 24–48 hours of a positive experience, with one follow-up only.
- Sending the same pasted reply to every review. Fix: vary the language and reference the reviewer's specific comment.
References
