Russel Wilenkin

expert panel

Resolve customer problems any time of year with these expert-recommended tips. The holidays can be a busy, stressful time for companies and customers alike. An influx of orders, too few staff and emotions running high can mean an increase in mistakes and dissatisfied customers. But these situations aren’t unique to the holiday season, and now that the new year is in full swing, businesses can step back and reflect on customer service lessons they can take with them throughout the rest of the year.  Below, the business leaders of Rolling Stone Culture Council discuss some of their top customer service lessons and the practices businesses can keep in mind when trying to find the best way to deal with an unhappy customer, no matter the season.

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It's not enough to simply define your brand mission — you have to live it every day. For any business, having a clear and meaningful mission is critical for success. To truly live up to that mission, however, you must ensure that it is consistently and clearly woven throughout all aspects of the business. Your brand's mission should be evident in the company's values, culture and day-to-day operations. To help you achieve this, 15 Rolling Stone Culture Council members each outline one specific step or action businesses can take to ensure their mission is fully integrated into their operations and why this is so important for the success and sustainability of the business.

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Their future opinion of your business rides on how you respond to their concerns. It's no secret that unhappy customers can have a negative effect on your business. All it takes is a slew of negative Yelp reviews or low star ratings to ruin a business’s reputation. But the reviews themselves aren’t always what have the biggest impact — it's all about the way the business responds to unsatisfied buyers. That's why it's so important to address customer concerns when they occur and attempt to turn the situation around. To shed some light on how to do so properly, 12 Rolling Stone Culture Council members explain the smartest things you should do first when you have an unhappy customer and why.

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Networking can be tough, but building relationships doesn't have to be. Networking is a major way to forge new connections and find potential business opportunities when you're an entrepreneur. But once you’ve made an initial connection, keeping the momentum going with that contact afterward — whether with other professionals or brands — can be tricky as you both return to your hectic daily lives. According to the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council, however, maintaining good business relationships doesn’t have to be challenging or take up a lot of time — it’s all about doing it the right way. Below, they list a few of their top tips for keeping the networking momentum going and why they work so well.

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To build a community of fans, you’ll need to hand them the reins. User-generated content (UGC) by definition is that content which is created by fans of a particular brand or product. And when a brand features content created by the fans for the fans, it can encourage other users to generate content too, eventually leading to an engaged community of loyal customers. To properly ignite this chain of events, however, companies will have to put in some initial legwork. Below, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members share ways in which their businesses build community around user-generated content and how any business can follow suit.

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For these business leaders, hindsight is 20/20. Starting a business can be an intimidating undertaking, especially when it’s your first one. You’re often feeling imposter syndrome in full force, and no matter how much planning and research you do ahead of time, rarely does any aspect of business go how you’d expect.  Because of this fact, for many entrepreneurs, hindsight is 20/20. Now with established careers and businesses, they can better reflect on what may have gone wrong or what they could have done better when they first started out. Below, a panel of 14 Rolling Stone Culture Council members share the lessons they wish they had known when starting their businesses and how that knowledge may have helped them grow along the way.