Before passing Judgment on a business or even a person, be sure that you know more than what is apparent. Things could be going on behind the scenes that explain perfectly why something has or has not transpired as originally indicated that it would. I think we all know that some unexpected things can happen that we have no control over.
There is sometimes nothing we can do but live with it and hope our friends will still believe in us in spite of it. Really there shouldn’t be such a big difference between a customer and a friend from either side. There should be a degree of trust and tolerance. On the one hand the person should be as transparent with you as possible to explain what exactly happened.
However on the other hand let’s talk about professionalism. Sometimes people can’t be perfectly honest because they are protecting someone or something else’s reputation. No excuse to cover up a crime of any kind no matter who it is, but just in general business circumstances. It also becomes a different, intolerable story if there is always some excuse especially where money is directly involved.
Think of all the people who may have invested themselves and their money in a business. If you ruin the reputation of a business without good reason you may essentially be hurting innocent people and their ability to succeed with that business. So before you do any harm, be sure that you really know what is going on and/or the reasoning behind the change.
For an example let’s say you have a program that is lately constantly not available online. This can get really maddening for one thing and for another it can become suspicious. That is why it is a good idea for the principals to get an email out there explaining the situation as far as they can. ‘We have a problem, we are working on a resolution, and we apologize for the inconvenience’.
However what if they don’t know what the problem is? What if it is some tiny obscure piece of hardware that has burned out and they haven’t discovered where it is? You can’t fix your problem unless you know what it is. It may take a few tries of having experts look at it before you identify it and can start to work on it. Then you tear it all down and put it all back together and hope you didn’t have to order parts from Timbuktu. It’s not instant.
You are doing everything you can but it is just not working. Be sure to keep emailing your people to assure them that you are actively engaged in finding a solution. If you can it might be a really good idea to create a video or hold a webinar so that people don’t feel like ‘oh wow I am paying for this program and can’t even get in’. Try to think of things you can do to keep them from going off the deep end while you fix your problem.
