Online Reputation Management Training Course

Duration 10 days 19 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Digital Marketing Managers, Customer Experience Managers and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-DM-061

Before you join: Participants should have practical familiarity with digital marketing, customer communications, social media management, public relations or customer service.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Online reputation affects customer acquisition, procurement decisions, investor confidence, recruitment and licence to operate. A negative review pattern, misleading search result, unmanaged social complaint or poorly handled public response can spread quickly and remain visible long after the underlying incident is resolved. Organisations need a disciplined way to detect reputation risks, establish facts, respond appropriately and improve the customer or stakeholder experience behind recurring criticism.

This course develops practical online reputation management (ORM) skills for marketing, communications, customer experience and digital teams. Participants assess search and social visibility, design listening queries, analyse review themes, classify sentiment, prioritise incidents and write channel-appropriate responses. They use Google Search, review platforms, social listening workflows, crisis communication principles and complaint-handling standards to distinguish routine service recovery from high-risk reputation events. The course also covers governance, escalation thresholds, content planning, employee advocacy, executive reporting and ethical search reputation practices.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with cases involving consumer brands, banks, public bodies, hospitality providers and B2B service firms. Participants work with realistic reviews, posts, search results, media queries and incident scenarios, then apply the methods to their own organisation or a supplied case. They leave with an ORM operating plan containing a reputation audit, monitoring design, response playbook, escalation matrix, dashboard and 90-day implementation roadmap.

The course suits professionals responsible for brand reputation, customer feedback, social channels, digital content, public relations or service recovery. It is especially relevant where public complaints, online reviews, search visibility or stakeholder scrutiny affect commercial performance and trust.

What you will be able to do

  • Conduct an online reputation audit using search, review, social and media evidence
  • Design social listening queries, source lists and monitoring thresholds
  • Classify reputation issues using sentiment, impact, reach and urgency criteria
  • Write review and social responses using service recovery and escalation principles
  • Build a crisis escalation matrix aligned to stakeholder and channel risks
  • Apply SCCT response strategies to common online reputation incidents
  • Create an ORM dashboard with actionable metrics and reporting routines
  • Present a 90-day online reputation management plan with governance controls

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce defensible responses to negative reviews and visible customer complaints
  • Recognise when routine service recovery requires senior escalation
  • Build evidence-based reputation reports for marketing and executive stakeholders
  • Improve search-result assessment and content response planning
  • Develop a reusable portfolio of ORM templates and governance tools

For your organisation

  • Reduce inconsistent public responses across customer-facing teams
  • Identify recurring service failures from review and social feedback
  • Shorten escalation time for reputation-critical incidents
  • Protect branded search results through ethical content and SEO actions
  • Give leaders a clear view of reputation risks and response performance

Course modules

19 modules over 10 days

Participants can define online reputation risks, value drivers and operating responsibilities.

  • Reputation signals across search, reviews, social platforms, forums and news coverage
  • Trust, credibility and purchase intent linked to visible digital evidence
  • Owned, earned, shared and paid media roles in ORM
  • Stakeholder mapping for customers, employees, regulators, investors and communities
  • Reputation risk appetite and tolerance thresholds for public criticism
  • ORM lifecycle from detection and assessment through response and learning

Participants can conduct a structured baseline audit of a brand's online reputation.

  • Branded search audit using first-page results, snippets and source authority
  • Review-platform inventory covering ratings, volumes, recency and response status
  • Social channel audit for mentions, engagement patterns and recurring complaints
  • Media and forum scan identifying influential narratives and unresolved claims
  • Baseline scorecard separating controllable, influenceable and external reputation factors
  • Evidence log documenting URLs, dates, screenshots, owners and priority ratings

Participants can assess search-result risks and plan ethical search reputation actions.

  • SERP features affecting branded visibility, including panels, videos and reviews
  • Search intent analysis for branded, complaint, executive and competitor queries
  • Title tags and meta descriptions supporting accurate branded search representation
  • Owned content gap analysis against unwanted but relevant search results
  • E-E-A-T signals assessed across author profiles, citations and editorial controls
  • Ethical suppression boundaries: no fake reviews, deception or harassment campaigns

Participants can build listening queries and source coverage for priority reputation issues.

  • Boolean query construction using brand names, misspellings, products and executives
  • Exclusion terms reducing irrelevant mentions and duplicate social conversations
  • Source mapping across major networks, forums, review sites and news sources
  • Keyword taxonomy covering service failures, allegations, praise and emerging issues
  • Alert thresholds based on volume spikes, influential authors and harmful claims
  • Listening cadence matched to business hours, markets and incident severity

Participants can classify online feedback into actionable reputation themes and priorities.

  • Sentiment coding beyond positive, negative and neutral label assignments
  • Thematic coding for price, quality, conduct, access, safety and service
  • Root-cause tagging linking public feedback to operational failure categories
  • Reach, resonance and recency scored for each reputation issue
  • Issue prioritisation matrix combining stakeholder impact, evidence and escalation need
  • Human quality checks correcting sarcasm, context errors and automated misclassification

Participants can manage review responses while protecting privacy and customer trust.

  • Review response triage by rating, allegation, customer vulnerability and visibility
  • HEARD service recovery model applied to dissatisfied customer interactions
  • Public acknowledgement paired with private resolution routes and clear ownership
  • Response timing standards for routine reviews, serious complaints and threats
  • Platform reporting procedures for impersonation, abuse, fraud and policy breaches
  • Review-request processes designed to avoid incentives, coercion and selection bias

Participants can write concise, accurate and brand-appropriate public responses.

  • Message architecture: acknowledgement, facts, action, boundary and next step
  • Tone-of-voice choices for anger, misinformation, praise and service failures
  • Plain-language responses that avoid defensiveness, speculation and legal admissions
  • Privacy-safe wording under data protection and confidential complaint obligations
  • Response templates adapted for reviews, comments, direct messages and forums
  • Approval rules for regulated claims, executive criticism and sensitive allegations

Participants can establish controls for lawful, consistent and accountable ORM activity.

  • RACI model assigning monitoring, response, approval and escalation responsibilities
  • ISO 10002 principles applied to complaint visibility and service recovery
  • Defamation, copyright and privacy considerations in public response decisions
  • Records retention for screenshots, decisions, correspondence and platform reports
  • Community guidelines defining prohibited conduct, moderation actions and appeal routes
  • Agency and vendor controls for access, approvals and ethical conduct

Participants can triage online incidents and activate proportionate escalation pathways.

  • Severity matrix using harm, reach, credibility, velocity and stakeholder exposure
  • Decision trees separating customer complaints from legal, safety and media incidents
  • Verification protocols for screenshots, identities, allegations and source provenance
  • Escalation triggers involving regulators, vulnerable customers, employees and threats
  • Incident logs recording decisions, owners, deadlines and approved statements
  • War-room roles for communications, legal, operations, security and leadership

Participants can select and coordinate crisis responses for public digital incidents.

  • Situational Crisis Communication Theory matched to responsibility and reputational threat
  • Holding statements built from known facts, empathy and next-update commitments
  • Message maps for customers, employees, media, partners and regulators
  • Rumour-control procedures correcting false claims without amplifying minor issues
  • Spokesperson briefing for hostile questions, social clips and live updates
  • Post-incident review identifying response gaps, recovery actions and ownership

Participants can plan credible content that addresses material reputation concerns.

  • Content inventory identifying proof points, outdated claims and trust gaps
  • Editorial themes based on stakeholder questions, service evidence and search demand
  • Case studies, FAQs and expert content supporting credible reputation recovery
  • Publishing calendar aligned to operational improvements and communication milestones
  • Content governance for substantiation, legal review and responsible claims
  • Distribution choices across websites, email, social channels and partner publications

Participants can manage community interactions while maintaining consistent moderation standards.

  • Community management workflows for comments, messages, reposts and creator mentions
  • Moderation matrix distinguishing criticism, abuse, misinformation and coordinated attacks
  • De-escalation language for angry contributors and repeated complaint patterns
  • Response ownership across social, customer service, communications and local teams
  • Influencer outreach protocols for complaints, corrections and relationship repair
  • Community insight reports converting conversations into operational recommendations

Participants can address reputation risks involving employees, leaders and internal advocates.

  • Executive search-result reviews covering biographies, interviews and public commentary
  • Employee advocacy guidelines covering disclosure, confidentiality and respectful conduct
  • Employer-review analysis for recruitment themes, leadership concerns and workplace claims
  • Internal escalation for whistleblowing allegations, misconduct claims and harassment reports
  • Leadership visibility plans using authentic expertise, evidence and approved messaging
  • Personal-versus-corporate account boundaries during public reputation incidents

Participants can compare reputation performance and identify market-level reputation risks.

  • Competitor review benchmarking by rating, response rate and complaint themes
  • Share-of-voice analysis across brand, category and issue-based conversations
  • Search comparison of branded queries, reputation terms and authoritative sources
  • Narrative mapping identifying category anxieties, trust drivers and unmet expectations
  • Competitor response analysis identifying useful practices without imitation or misrepresentation
  • Market intelligence brief separating evidence, interpretation and recommended actions

Participants can create practical ORM metrics, dashboards and decision-focused reports.

  • KPI tree linking reputation signals to service, marketing and commercial outcomes
  • Review metrics covering rating, volume, recency, response rate and resolution
  • Social metrics separating mention volume, sentiment, reach and issue velocity
  • Search metrics tracking branded rankings, result composition and referral traffic
  • Dashboard design using trend lines, thresholds, annotations and accountable owners
  • Executive reporting focused on decisions, risks, actions and unresolved dependencies

Participants can coordinate channel actions without compromising credibility or compliance.

  • Paid search campaigns protecting branded query space during reputation pressure
  • Owned-channel updates providing accessible facts, FAQs and service status information
  • Earned-media engagement based on evidence, disclosure and responsive press handling
  • Retargeting exclusions for customers involved in unresolved sensitive complaints
  • Campaign monitoring for negative comments, misleading claims and audience reactions
  • Channel coordination preventing contradictory messages and duplicated customer contacts

Participants can design an operating model for sustained online reputation management.

  • Centralised, decentralised and hybrid ORM models compared against organisational needs
  • Service-level agreements for monitoring, approval, response and escalation times
  • Skills matrix covering analysts, responders, moderators, spokespeople and approvers
  • Vendor evaluation criteria for listening platforms, agencies and response services
  • Budget categories for tools, content, training, crisis support and analytics
  • Monthly governance forum agenda for risks, trends, actions and accountability

Participants can translate ORM priorities into a controlled 90-day implementation plan.

  • Priority backlog ranked by risk reduction, effort, stakeholder value and dependency
  • Ninety-day roadmap with milestones, owners, budgets and approval checkpoints
  • Control testing for response times, approval compliance and evidence retention
  • Tabletop scenarios testing alert thresholds, handovers and escalation pathways
  • Change communications for staff adopting new response and reporting procedures
  • Assurance review documenting exceptions, corrective actions and executive decisions

Participants can build, review and present a complete online reputation management plan for a defined organisation.

  • Reputation audit synthesised into priority risks, opportunities and evidence statements
  • Listening design specifying queries, sources, alerts, cadence and accountable owners
  • Response playbook covering reviews, social complaints, misinformation and escalations
  • Crisis matrix linking severity levels to approvals, messages and actions
  • Dashboard selecting metrics, thresholds, reporting audiences and decision routines
  • Ninety-day roadmap presented with resources, governance and assurance measures

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Online reputation audit template
  2. Social listening query library
  3. Review response playbook
  4. Incident escalation matrix
  5. ORM executive dashboard model
  6. 90-day ORM implementation plan

Who should attend

  • Digital Marketing Managers — need to protect brand visibility across search, social and review channels
  • Customer Experience Managers — need to convert public complaints into controlled service recovery
  • Communications and PR Managers — need structured monitoring and response governance
  • Social Media Managers — need consistent methods for triaging public interactions
  • Brand Managers — need evidence on reputation drivers and competitor perceptions
  • Contact Centre Leaders — need escalation rules for high-risk customer cases

Skills and tools covered

Reputation auditingSocial listeningReview responseCrisis escalationSearch reputationORM reporting

Tools and standards

Google Alerts, Google Business Profile, Situational Crisis Communication Theory, ISO 10002

How the course runs

Training methodology

Instructor briefings introduce ORM methods, response principles and governance models before participants apply them to realistic cases. Group work uses reviews, social posts, search-result pages, complaint records and incident timelines to practise assessment, prioritisation and response design. Simulations test escalation decisions under time pressure, including media attention and stakeholder complaints. Participants develop their own reputation-management materials throughout the course, receiving instructor feedback and peer review. Application planning connects the final operating plan to existing marketing, customer service and communications processes.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical familiarity with digital marketing, customer communications, social media management, public relations or customer service. They should be able to read basic web analytics, assess written customer feedback and use common online platforms. Experience responding to reviews, managing social accounts or handling customer complaints is useful but not essential. The course does not require coding, advanced SEO knowledge, paid media expertise, specialist data analysis software or prior crisis-management training. Participants may bring examples of public reviews, recurring complaints or reputation concerns from their organisation.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need practical familiarity with marketing, communications, social media, customer service or public relations. Prior ORM, SEO, crisis-management or specialist analytics experience is not required.

Bring a laptop for live online delivery and, where permitted, examples of reviews, social comments, search results or recurring customer complaints. Participants should remove confidential personal data and commercially sensitive information before sharing material.

The course is designed for managers and specialists who influence public-facing communications, customer feedback, social channels or brand reputation. It also suits contact centre and service leaders responsible for escalation of visible complaints.

Social media marketing focuses primarily on campaign planning, content and audience growth, while crisis communication concentrates on major incidents. This course connects search, reviews, social listening, response governance, service recovery and reputation reporting.

Participants develop an audit, query set, response playbook, escalation matrix and implementation roadmap that can be adapted for their employer. The materials are designed for use with marketing, communications, customer service and leadership teams.

The first part establishes audit, monitoring, response and escalation methods, with participants building working materials from the start. The later part covers crisis handling, content, reporting, governance and a final capstone presentation; each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 with about 6.5 contact hours.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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