I did a 7-minute video for some ladies in my Facebook Group, Women Business Owners Supporting Women Business Owners and thought it would be of value to more than my audience of 1,000 female entrepreneurs. Feel free to join us if you’re a woman who owns her own unique business. Sorry, no MLM or Network Marketing posts/comments will be approved.
This is a quick video about the importance of having a PR strategy in place for when something goes wrong. While we don’t want to put negativity out into the Universe, the truth is that we’re dealing with humans. While we may do our best at making our business perfect, it never will be. We need to have a plan for when someone calls us on our imperfections. We also need a plan in case someone is devious enough to want to destroy our businesses, be it out of spite, revenge or just the desire to be an awful human. Yes, sadly, those people do exist. And they’re the ones who will try to take you down on your digital platforms.
So, all of you Trip Advisor watchers, all of your nervously waiting for your next Yelp review, I’m talking to you. Of course if you’re doing business right at all, you’ll have more 5-star reviews than any other. Those 1-star reviews though – those are where you’ll really shine. If you know for a fact (due to your customer base telling you so on and offline) that you have an amazing meatball sandwich, but one jerk (there’s always one) decides he’s going to earn critic of the year by tearing it apart, you have 3 options.
- Delete the review and move on. (Not recommended.)
- Have some fun with it. You know you put a good product on your customer’s plates. Make him/her look like the jackass he/she is. (See photo below for reference.)
- If you know you had an off day, go above and beyond to get that customer back in your good graces and make sure the public sees you acknowledge your failings and that they see your plan to make it right.
I work with a hospitality group up on Cape Cod. As you can imagine, a business that is flooded with family vacationers is bound to receive a complaint or two. They do! We’ve gotten some absolutely ludicrous complaints. It’s apparent that people are looking for nothing more than a free night at the resort and they won’t stop shy of (attempting) demolishing the company.
In those cases, I carefully gather facts and put together responses that get our loyalists fired up. They grab their pitchforks and torches and go after the person who is blatantly trying to get something for nothing. Responding to reviews doesn’t always mean you admit fault. The customer, in fact, is not always right. The beauty of digital PR done right is that when worded perfectly, you, the business owner come out looking like royalty and the abuser is brought to light. Just because you’re the business owner, it doesn’t mean you have to tolerate abuse.
If you don’t think you have the ability to look at a situation neutrally and respond in such a way that will reflect positively on your business, please step away and ask a professional to help. I have years and years of experience in this field and would be more than happy to help your business out of the digital PR jam it’s in. If you would like more information on PR work or other digital marketing work, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
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