Do you like negative feedback? Do you wait for it with excitement like you wait for that special package you ordered to arrive at your door? If not, you\u2019re not alone. Nobody likes feedback. It\u2019s daunting and weighs heavily on our shoulders. It stirs our emotions. It makes our heart race and fills us with adrenaline. It can leave a bad taste in our mouth for days.<\/p>\n
In college, a professor once told me a story. Every time her family had chicken for dinner, she saved the chicken breast for her husband, no matter how much the children asked for it or how much she wanted it for herself. After 20 years of marriage, her husband finally confessed, \u201cI have never liked chicken breasts. I would prefer any other piece of the chicken.\u201d Timely feedback can make everybody\u2019s life easier, whether you\u2019re giving it or receiving it.<\/p>\n
If somebody is taking the time to give you feedback, it means that you\u2019re not going to lose your client. Save your worries for a client that doesn\u2019t send you feedback.<\/p>\n
We need to respond to all feedback, regardless of what we\u2019re planning to do with it. I have three tips for writing the response.<\/p>\n
Tip 1: You should be driving the feedback car. If you let your ego drive, you are headed for a head-on collision.<\/p>\n
Tip 2: Assume your message won\u2019t be private, but public. Your response will most likely be forwarded, usually to the reviewer who reported the mistakes, so do not badmouth them.<\/p>\n
Tip 3: Decide the objective of your response.<\/p>\n
Empathize with their frustration. Apologize for mistakes and explain what you will do to prevent repeating them. Thank them for the time they or their reviewer spent writing the notes. Most
\nimportantly: be sincere. Don’t use a language barrier to cover up your error from a client who isn’t able to discern the complex grammatical rules in your explanation.<\/p>\n
Be gracious, say thank you and never take work from them again. Telling them how ignorant they are and then dumping them will get you more grief in the long run. It could result in a bad review or an angry post on your social media accounts, for example.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Clients are human, like us, and sometimes they make mistakes, especially when they\u2019re in the middle of two sparring linguists with contradicting opinions. In this case, don\u2019t be passive aggressive and let an egregious error stand. Instead, try to save your client from embarrassment. How? Target the error among all the feedback. Stick to the facts. Delete any emotional language. Be objective by stating the rules. Use institutions and books as sources, not your opinion.<\/p>\n
Once a client of mine sent me feedback and wanted me to accent all instances of the word \u201cti\u201d (\u201cyou\u201d) in her subtitle file. If you don\u2019t speak Spanish, you probably guessed that \u201cti\u201d should not have an accent. This is how I responded: \u201cThanks so much for taking the time to send me your feedback. I took note of all your preferences and will follow them in future projects. I have one concern. The Royal Spanish Academy updated their spelling rules not so long ago, and in their most current book, \u2018ti\u2019 appears without an accent.\u201d That was enough to save her from the embarrassment of having typos all over her corporate video. I gave her a gracious way out without criticizing her or her proofreader, and I did it by putting the weight of the knowledge where it belongs: on the Spanish Royal Academy. After all, they were the ones who decided that \u201cti\u201d doesn\u2019t have an accent (and never has) and not me.<\/p>\n
In general, we should sincerely be thankful for feedback because it\u2019s the path to getting more direct work and referral work, and a way of learning new things and perspectives. A shift of perception on feedback is rewarding and allows us to tame our responses.<\/p>\n
All our clients want after sending their feedback is acknowledgement and a promise that we will learn, improve and won\u2019t make the same mistakes again. If they wanted to fire us, we would not be receiving feedback at all. It takes less time to delete us from their vendor list than it is to provide us with feedback.<\/p>\n
Deborah Wexler
\nAVD Administrator<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taming your Response to Feedback Do you like negative feedback? Do you wait for it with excitement like you wait for that special package you ordered to arrive at your door? If not, you\u2019re not alone. Nobody likes feedback. It\u2019s daunting and weighs heavily on our shoulders. It stirs our emotions. It makes our heart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[264,14,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1313,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/AVD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}