Something I have heard quite a few times over the years in business is that feedback is a gift. As such, you will want to get used to saying thank you for your feedback if you are going to go into business for yourself. It won’t always be welcomed or even requested but trust me, it will come.

Having an attitude of gratitude for whatever feedback comes your way will help you to avoid feeling frustrated when people are overly negative. The key thing to remember is not to take things personally. Even if in some cases the feedback may be delivered with some anger and venom, it’s important to try and see if there is some truth to what is being said.

Easier said than done I know, but it is important for your own well-being and state of mind that you make a distinction between you and the business…..unless of course, you are the business.

1) Help you Finetune your Service/Product

In most cases, it would be expected that some level of user research would have been before launching a new service or product but that doesn’t make ongoing feedback redundant. One of the best ways to inspire positive changes in your product or service is to find out what your customers think of it

2) Provide Fuel for Your Motivation

The reason you are encouraged to say thank you for your feedback, is that it puts you in a receptive state of mind if you are prepared to be grateful for it. Whether it is positive or negative, you can use the feedback to encourage you to keep striving to be better at what you do.

3) Avoid Known Pitfalls

One of the wonderful aspects of the internet is the sheer wealth of information that is at our fingertips. There are many sites out there that focus on gathering consumer feedback and browsing through some of these from services/products in your chosen industry can be invaluable in helping you avoid mistakes others would have made. Trust Pilot is a great resource for browsing existing feedback on other companies.

Many times, people will project their own negativity onto you and your business. The tone of  the feedback may not have anything at all to do with their experience with your business but rather with something else that’s going on with them. People tend to see negative things in others because of the way they feel about themselves. 

Even though sometimes it will have absolutely nothing to do with your business, you shouldn’t  dismiss any of it. Look for the positive in what people say and always try to find a learning point. It is definitely critical that you listen to the feedback though. I had a situation recently where an eBay seller demonstrated how not to listen to feedback.

After purchasing a product from then and receiving something that was in contradiction to what I received, I left them a review to reflect my experience which of course wasn’t positive.

They messaged me directly to say thank you for the feedback and apologise for the experience, they then proceeded to ask me to change my review to a positive one. Of course, I declined but I then realised that instead of learning from feedback, they probably just kept trying to get people to change their feedback. This is not a good practice and is not recommended in any way shape or form.

The key though, no matter how harsh the feedback is, is finding that strength to keep going. You started your business journey because you believed in something. You were inspired by an idea. You owe it to that inspiration to see it through to the end.

When someone says “That will never work”, respond with thank you for your feedback. Then just smile and think about the countless times throughout history when this statement has been proven wrong.

If you are looking for detailed feedback on your business, please feel free to get in touch to learn more about how we can help.