UK businesses will need to be more proactive in managing
their reputation online if they want to succeed ate-commerce, Gartner has
said.
The growing use of scoring and rating sites, and social and
business networks such as LinkedIn, means that customers will have
access to more information on a company's reputation, says analyst
Jey Heiser.
Negative or false attacks online could harm a customer's trust
towards doing business with a company and Heiser said that IT
criminals will shift focus to blackmailing companies for not
affecting their online reputation.
To combat this,
e-businesses need to build and foster their own online
communities which encourages feedback and transparency.
"Amazon and eBay succeeded precisely because they explicitly
provided reputation evaluation systems. If your business depends on
a positive Internet reputation, or an accurate evaluation of
external reputations, you need to address this," said Heiser.