How do I enhance my businesses reputation - without being obvious?

Recently, a colleague of mine posted on his blog how customers can leverage the internet to communicate dissatisfaction with a businesses products or services to a huge online audience, it's potential negative effects and how this makes good customer service even more critical to successful business.

Well - I think that's what he meant anyway.

There are examples of New Zealand websites that are dedicated to this. E.g. http://www.mytradesman.co.nz/ where punters can review the work of sparkies, builders and plumbers etc for all to see. Along with the real horror stories, there are some great reviews of Tradesmen who had provided excellent customer service - which has got to be great for business.

However, I ask - how can a business leverage the internet to enhance it’s reputation and increase sales or grow it's business - apart from just providing better customer service?

I could create a Blog and rave about my products and services - Many companies already do this to good effect with ’sponsored’ blogs by exployees and evangelists. E.g. Microsoft, Oracle.
But the web user is pretty sophisticated nowadays, and take what they read with a grain of salt.

Are there more effective, less obvious ways of increasing a businesses reputation?