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Part of being a successful business owner is how you adapt when things take a turn for the worse. Every small business will have moments where something might happen, and your brand image takes a hit. It could be one bad customer experience or one day where things just didn’t go to plan, and a lot of people were left upset.

If you’re in a situation where your brand has received a body blow, then here are a few ideas to help rebuild and come back stronger than ever:

Gather all feedback

When things go wrong, your customers will inevitably have a few harsh words to say. Don’t take this as abuse, use it to plan your rebuilding strategy! Listen to all the negative feedback that’s thrown at you, and you will start seeing where things went wrong. It becomes easier to identify where everything unraveled, and you can compile a list of things to change in your business so customers are happier and you can provide a better service in the future. If you want to be really serious about things, send out emails to customers or ask them on social media for feedback so you can improve for them. Put the customer’s needs first, and your brand will slowly be rebuilt.

Apologize via adverts

This is an idea that was used perfectly by KFC earlier in the year when they ran out of chicken and had to close loads of shops. Customers were really annoyed, and the brand took a bit of a hit. So, they responded with a very cheeky advert (which I’ve kindly embedded above this paragraph) that apologized and addressed the situation. People loved it, and things returned to normal right away. Your business should try a similar thing, and I’ll tell you why. As it mentions on Vistacomm.com, advertising lets you creatively deliver a message to a broad audience. It’s the best way to get an apology out there, but you can also have some fun like KFC did, which makes people laugh and forgive you.

Offer compensation/incentives

You’ve tweaked the way your business operates based on the feedback from customers. You’ve apologized with a clever advert and won back a few fans. Now, you need to seal the deal with some compensation or incentives. If your brand is in a bad place because something happened and customers were left unhappy, then compensate them with free gifts or discount codes. These act as incentives for them to return, and you can get back on the right track. It also shows that you genuinely feel sorry and care for your customers as you’ll willing to offer free product/services or massive discounts to get them back.

If things go wrong for your business, then it’s not the end of the world. Your brand may be a little beaten and bruised, but you can still rebuild it. Act fast, use the three techniques mentioned in this blog post, and you’ll soon be back on track.