If I asked you to think of the one person who could do the most damage to your online reputation, you’d probably picture some seriously cheesed off customer slagging you off in a forum or rubbishing your company in their blog. Understandable.
But probably wrong. Paradoxically, the person who’s likely to do your reputation the most damage is you – by your reaction to criticism or attack.
When someone levels criticism at us or makes allegations that are likely to destroy confidence in our products and services, it usually hurts – a lot. We often feel genuinely upset that someone feels that way about our business but we’re fearful too of the damage it may do to our reputation and bottom line.
Our instinct may well be to ‘fight’ and argue, hit back or defend our position aggressively or take ‘flight’ and avoid dealing with the situation altogether. Mix in to that how easy it is to misinterpret text, the lack of body language and the safe distance that encourages online argument and someone’s critical comments start to look like a minefield that’s all to easy to blunder into.
Our number 1 rule (in life as well as in online reputation) is to not react. Not reacting creates the space to see what’s really going on. Make no mistake, not reacting hurts momentarily (which is why most people prefer to react with anger so as not to feel bad) but it’s the only way to turn a threat into a triumph.
Remember, both you and your critic will be judged by your conduct, not the detail of the matter at hand, and it’s our aim to see our clients handle the situation with dignity, empathy, accountability and respect.
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