Looking for challenges, to find opportunities.

Sometimes I sit and stare at the screen, trying to think about a blog topic, and today is no different. I wanted to talk about turning challenges into opportunities, and I did some digging and found fantastic articles about mindset and the power of positive thinking. But it still wasn't right.
So I dug a bit deeper and started thinking about the challenge of a negative comment (or your Facebook page, or a negative Google review), and how you overcome that. We've written several blogs on the subject that you can find here.
What I wanted to do, was dig even further and focus on the challenge of a negative review, and how you can turn this into an opportunity; with two different examples:
Scenario #1-You receive a negative review on social media.

Yikes!

The challenge here is quite obvious; not only do you have a negative review, but it's in a public forum. You know (and we all search reviews when buying products) that in a pool of glowing remarks, it's the one negative one the leaps off the page. There's almost a beacon on it, drawing your eyes to it.

There is a great opportunity here. If you receive a negative public remark, you can respond publicly with a resolution. Keep it simple, gracious, and by all means, do what you say you're going to do. This is not personal; its business and the customer is always right. Most of all, however, if your gut instinct is to fire back negatively, then walk away. Come back when you're calm.
The key here is having someone to manage your online profile, checking in daily for comments (positive and negative), and giving them the power to offer a resolution. You don't want a negative review to sit and sit and sit. Get in front of it.
Scenario #2-You have negative reviews, that you don't know about.

Public reviews are tough to take, but when handled the right way, they have the potential to improve your online reputation. The challenge is, the negative reviews, you never hear.

Unfortunately, some people keep negativity to themselves. How many times have you been to a restaurant, and a dish wasn't particularly to your liking, and you did nothing about it? You could have sent it back, you could have asked for a refund, but instead, you finished it (mostly) making a note to yourself that next time you'll choose another restaurant.

The restaurant has lost your business, and they didn't have the opportunity to win you back, because they didn't know. To compound this, you complained about it on the way home, and to your friend on the phone later, maybe even mentioned it to coworkers the next day. The potential loss of future revenue is substantial-but you, the business owner, didn't know and never had the opportunity to make it right.

The opportunity-how do you set up a culture where either your team checks in regularly with clients to see if they're happy or calls up your clients when they don't renew their contract? Further, how do you guide your team to stress the importance of feedback and receive it constructively? Do you have online feedback forms, or surveys, that you send out to current and past clients providing an opportunity for anonymous feedback?

So start brainstorming; look for gaps in your customer experience process and how you can keep happy clients
and minimize the quiet detractors. You got this!

By Peggy Murrah, Founder of PMA Web Services