Whether your business is big or small, it’s guaranteed that at some point you will find yourself in hot water. This may be due to a miscommunication with a client or through a negative review published online.
However, it’s important to remember that issues can be resolved & we at Myk Baxter Marketing like to see business crises as a learning curve. With this in mind, in today’s blog post, we’ll be sharing our advice on how to carefully handle a business crisis.
Gather All Your Facts First
When you first find yourself in an unfortunate situation, remember to stay calm & level-headed. It’s time to handle this responsibly & with caution.
You want to begin by gathering all the facts about the situation. What’s caused it? Who’s been directly involved? Take a look through all of your previous communications, & double-check your proposal & procedures to ensure that all of your practices & promises have been fulfilled.
By doing so, you’ll be able to use these as evidence & helpful pointers when dealing with the scenario, & having documents like this readily available allows you to swiftly deal with any emergency too.
Be Diplomatic
Most often or not, both parties are at blame in these situations. Perhaps the customer hasn’t read the fine print properly & you may have miscommunicated in an email.
With these both being common circumstances, you in this situation must not beat yourself up. We’re only human at the end of the day. However, if the customer is to blame, you must make them aware of the error but you want to handle it diplomatically.
Provide your customer with your documentation, & with a log of your previous communication as evidence and simply explain that this is an oversight by both parties & give your full assistance personally until all is resolved.
Act Quickly
A negative comment or review can spread like wildfire, meaning that more potential customers will turn away unless you know to acknowledge it quickly.
Essentially, there are two ways you can do this. Firstly, you can carry out the first point & gather all of the information you need to respond, which often works best for bigger crises’. On the other hand, if it’s a minor complaint, for example, if someone’s parcel has been misdelivered we recommend setting up automated messages such as “Please send us a private message including your tracking number & a member of our team will be in touch with you”.
By doing this, you are providing your customers with quick responses & providing them with personalised service will only make them feel more valued.
Learn From Your Mistakes
As a business, & a team you are constantly evolving & these unsettling circumstances can play a huge role in how you continue to push forward in bettering yourselves.
To read our guide on overcoming the negatives & looking to the good, click here.
Telephone number: 01325 939 838
Address: 2 Peel Court, St Cuthberts Way, Darlington, County Durham, DL1 1GB
