RSS
Twitter
Facebook
E-Mail
Take Charge of How Your Community Members Perceive You
I had a conversation with a member on one of my communities the other day. I had sent him a notification to let him know he had violated the guidelines and his reply was fine, he was apologetic, but he said that he didn’t like being “told off.” And that just didn’t sit real well with me. I felt like he may have been looking at me like this little guy to the right.
OK, so, what’s the big deal? Well, maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t. But, my contact templates – my messages are members – are written in a way where we don’t want them to be looked at as being “told off,” nor is that our intention, at any point. We are aiming to inform and to help, generally speaking, with these notifications. We tell people what was removed, why and, as such, how to avoid it in the future. I never want anyone to think of these messages as them being “told off.”
I could have let it go, but I seized on it and told the member that I wasn’t telling him off and not to take it that way – simply put, we’re all friendly here and we are mainly trying to help and if he has any further questions, to please let me know.
Will it have any impact? Who knows. But, on a scale of noting the language that members use and kindly correcting any negative and improper perceptions, I believe it does have an impact, I believe it demonstrates that you care and that there is a human connection.
So, the next time that a member mischaracterizes something that you’ve done, step up and let them know what the actual intention was. You never know, you might make a connection with that person.
|
Do you think it may have been worth asking that member for ideas as to how the template could be amended so that he didn’t feel ‘told off’? If he felt that way, it’s likely others do, too.
Just a thought :)
Hey Martin,
Thanks for the comment.
Yes and no. Yes, in that I don’t see that there would be any harm in hearing his thoughts, but no, in that I also don’t believe that it was necessary or that one person feeling a certain way should necessitate change. There are a lot of different ways you can go with this.
At the end of the day, these contact templates are well thought out and well tested over period of not weeks or months, but years, and you can drive yourself crazy taking every potentially negative remark as “what can I do to change?” or “what’s wrong with me?”
I think it’s important to try to reserve those for the situations where they will be most helpful and most important, not in this situation where, again, I have a good understanding of what I am looking to accomplish with these contact templates, with the knowledge that, yes, sometimes people will take them in a manner of displeasure, but that, no, there isn’t anything I can do to eliminate that completely and, perhaps, nor should I – as these members are being contacted because they did something that they shouldn’t have.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I should not desire to clarify the staff’s role in the community when this happens, as discussed here in this post.
Thanks,
Patrick