How to handle negative feedback

Responding to negative feedback is one of the best ways to showcase your brand’s personality. With a little touch of wit, honesty, creativity and a solid grasp of the topic of discussion you can get anyone who gives a negative opinion about your business to change their stance.

These three tips can prove useful whenever you have to do the impossible task of “countering a critic’s opinion without getting them to take offense”.

Here we go

Don’t get angry

Okay, so someone has something bad to say about an aspect of your business, or it might even be a negative review of how your entire operation is being run, sad right? For most people the first reaction is to get mad.

Wouldn’t it be nicer if, instead of letting the anger take control, you just took a deep breath and calmed down? Responding in the heat of the moment might worsen the situation, it would only prove the critics point and solidify their position as the right party.

So what do you do? Humor is the keyword here, get witty, highlight the reasons why the critic is wrong but do so in a way that will defuse the tense situation. Just as smiling could reduce tensions in face-to-face situation, so does tasteful humor in this type of scenario.

Assess the situation

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Negative feedback is unavoidable since you can’t always be right. But, in some situations, negative feedback is not really a feedback. You might be the victim of a troll who’s looking for some two minute shine.

Some comments are worth your reply and some are just not what you should reply to, a bad comment might be a genuine one made by someone who’s concerned about how your business or an aspect of it is being handled and is offering constructive criticism. You want to reply someone like this with respect, a witty reply though but should come off as respectful.

If you feel a critic is being disrespectful even though they are offering useful advice, point it out but don’t be offensive.

Turn the tables on them

A bad comment directed at your person, brand or anything of high-value to you is bound to get you rattled, but that’s only if you let it.

Turning the situation around on a “cowboy” is really a matter of being the bigger person. Having to reply also means it is your time to shine at the expense whoever dropped the bad comment in the first place, but the reply process has to be handled with maturity, otherwise things might get out of hand.

One thing to keep in mind is that the people who drop these comments usually have nothing to lose. You on the other hand have your reputation at stake, which is why you have to be careful in dealing with them.

Be rational, don’t get too emotional and be confident but don’t ever make the mistake of saying something bad about someone who already has a bad opinion about your brand. Remember you’re not trying to prove yourself to one person who is the critic, instead you are appealing to your entire readership and approaching such situation with utmost maturity is the only way you can win.

It is impossible not to have negative feedbacks once in a while, however, the gem of situations like that lies in the fact that “it is an opportunity to convert a critic to your fan and boost brand perception at the same time”. It is also important that you keep in mind that, “negative feedback is better than content obscurity”.