When it comes to marketing, whether it is health marketing or content marketing, you want to have negative feedback! Sure your first inclination is to delete it so that no one else can see.
However, deleting the feedback will cause you to miss a great opportunity. It is telling you why a follower is unhappy and gives you the chance to reach out and improve the relationship. It also shows you what you need to do to better your services and your site.
How else would you know?
As difficult as it may seem, the only way both you and your employees will be able to learn and grow is if they know what areas need improvement.So negative feedback is a crucial element towards growth and improvement. In fact, any type of feedback is better than no feedback at all.
If you’re not actively providing feedback, it’s likely that only 4 out of 10 employees are actively disengaged.
Don’t Get Defensive!
Why do managers view negative feedback as a bitter pill to swallow? Primarily, it’s how the feedback is being delivered. Usually, it’s not used as an opportunity to course correct. improvements.
Delivering it the right way will make your employees more engaged. So, where do you start?
A great resource is The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, Ph.D. and Spencer Johnson, MD. Within the book, they have a great section about one-minute reprimands, outlining key steps to help you successfully execute the delivery of negative feedback.
These steps include:
• Immediately reprimand them, don’t wait hours or even days.
• Be specific about telling them what they did wrong.
• Don’t forget to tell me how you feel about what they did wrong. It’s okay for a couple moments of silence to pass.
• Let them feel how you feel. When the reprimand is over, it’s over. Don’t bring it up again.
Resourceful Manager also created an infographic highlighting statistics that will help you deliver negative feedback in a way that will encourage employees to perform better.
Some interesting stats they found were:
• Managers who give feedback have 30% more engaged workers.
• 74% of employees weren’t surprised by what they were hearing.
• 57% of employees appreciate corrective / negative feedback.
• 90% of millennial employees what frequent, candid feedback.
Have a business meeting and discuss the feedback, good and bad that you have received over the last week. The key action is not to ignore it! Instead, it is important to address the problem right away.
Most reviewers don’t want to “bad-mouth” you and walk away. Rather, they want to be validated; They want you to acknowledge that they are right and give them an apology. Have them come to the office so that you can deal with the problem, face to face.
If you ignore the problem and let it fester, more people will jump on the bandwagon of ill feedback and it will snowball into a real disaster. You have the opportunity to handle damage control immediately and make a critic into a real follower and dedicated fan who will refer you to friends and family!
How have you handled it? Share your experiences in the comment box below.
