Being Humble will Get Results

In my opinion, the best advice Bernoff gave in chapters 9 and 10 of Groundswell, was advising his readers to "muster up the humility to listen and tap into the skill to take what you've heard and make improvements (194)." I would imagine that some people have a very difficult time reading negative reviews of their products or services without getting upset or seeing it as a personal attack. If the business is smaller, it might be easier to make changes suggested by the groundswell, but on the other hand, people working for larger businesses might have an easier time reading the negative reviews in the first place. This is because they would be further separated from the product itself, and therefore even if they are a part of the company that produces the product or service, they are more of an outsider than a small business owner who might be too close to be able to process negative reviews and make changes to their product. As made evident by the Credit Mutuel example, there will always be people who have something rude or unhelpful to say, but it is worth subjecting yourself to the unhelpful comments to get to the genuine suggestions. For example, I am a Facebook fan of the local grocery store, Living Earth, which caries a lot of local and organic produce, as well as vegan and vegetarian options. A lot of people (in my opinion, inexplicably) seem personally affronted when someone says that they are vegan or vegetarian, and the other day one of these people decided to post a lovely picture expressing his opinion of vegan food on the Living Earth Facebook page: 

The man who runs the Facebook page takes it very seriously and updates all the time, but I think he responded very well. Instead of removing the picture or responding angrily, he made a joke. This might not be the right approach for every company, but I personally thought it worked well for Living Earth. Everyone in charge of social media for a company has to evaluate how to appropriately respond to negative comments, reactions cannot be the same for every type of company.

 

Overall, it is important to remember that your company is meant to produce something for a customer. Regardless of the size of your customer base, if you make the groundswell feel like you care about them, they will care about you a lot more. Earlier tonight, I saw a Google Chrome commercial that really features their customer base:

The slogan for their new campaign line is "Make It Happen." The description says "No matter who you are, the web can help you do anything. This year, use the web to make it happen and take life head on. Rock and roll!" No where in the description does it say anything along the lines of use Google Chrome, and the commercial features their actual customers. Its entirely about the customer, and though a lot of companies are realizing they must make ad campaigns like this, but this is the best example I have seen.