How to Handle Criticism from Customers
by Michele Pariza Wacek
It's an unfortunate fact of life (and business). Out of the blue you get a
nasty email from someone. Sometimes it's about an article you've written.
Sometimes it's accompanied by a refund request. Sometimes it doesn't seem like
it's tied to anything at all.
Or maybe you discover someone writing malicious things about you on a blog or
a forum. Or maybe some other negative things suddenly start getting tweeted or
posted to Facebook about you, your products or your business.
Stuff happens. As a business owner and entrepreneur, the more successful you
become, the more you open yourself up to criticism, negative feedback or just
plain being attacked.
As someone who is both a writer AND a business owner, I know all about what
happens when you're dealing with unwelcome criticism. (I write fiction so yes,
I've dealt with my share of negative feedback.) But if this is something new for
you, or even if it's not new but you're feeling like you've just been
sucker-punched by something out of the blue, I thought I'd share a few insights
to help you get through it.
1. Know you're not alone. We've ALL been there. And I mean exactly
that. It doesn't matter how small or big your business is, stuff like this is
going to happen. So know that no matter what just happened to you, there are a
lot of entrepreneurs and business owners out there who will both sympathize and
emphasize.
2. See it for what it is. All criticism is not created equally.
Sometimes what someone is saying has absolutely nothing to do with you and
everything to do with their own issues. Sometimes they have a legitimate
complaint but the person is so unhappy with their own life they blow it
completely out of portion because they just want to strike out at someone and
you're the one they picked.
And sometimes they have a legitimate beef AND they handled it fine, but you just
didn't want to hear it. An example of this is some of the criticism I've gotten
from some of my stories. The people were thoughtful and absolutely right. And I
hated them. (Until I got over myself and slunk back to the keyboard to make the
edits.)
Now the third option doesn't happen too often (unless you're a fiction
writer) but the first two do. You just have to see it for what it is. If there's
something buried in the anger and name-calling you can use to improve your
products, services or business, by all means use it. But know the rest of it has
absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.
(And you'll know when the criticism is right. Trust me. Your gut will tell
you.)
3. Be kind to yourself. When these things happen, it can hurt. And
that's okay. Call a friend. Or better yet, your mother (if you can). Write about
it in your journal. Take a walk. Don't bury your feelings, let yourself feel bad
and then let it go. Don't tell yourself it doesn't matter and let it fester
inside you, deal with it. Get it out of you. And then let it go.
4. Let someone else deal with these things. Whenever possible, have
someone else in your business be a filter for stuff like this. Let other people
take care of refund requests or just read the nasty emails and they can decide
if there's a legitimate complaint buried in there or not. Protect yourself,
there's no need for you to see everything or deal with everything. Yes you'll
have to step in if something big happens, but let other people take care of the
small stuff. The small stuff is what wears you down anyway. Save yourself for
the big things and don't worry about the rest.
Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) is your Ka-Ching!
marketing strategist and owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC, a
copywriting and marketing agency. She helps entrepreneurs become more
successful at attracting more clients, selling more products and services
and boosting their business. Visit her site at
http://www.MichelePW.com
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