As online community managers it's our job to ensure that we create an environment in which members can communicate, and interact with each other. We keep things ticking along - responding to concerns, engaging, enabling and helping. But from time to time things go wrong, and it's important when things go pear-shaped that we step-up, and sort it out.
What sort of things can go wrong? Well for starters site tech issues can be the vein of a community managers life. You know the sort of thing I am referring to I'm sure. The site won't load, or people can't use the chat room or upload pictures ... etc, etc ... the list can be endless, and more often than not it's beyond our control, and yet we are in the direct line of fire. Community members moan, and complain to us because we are on the front lines. We pass along the comments and report issues to the tech team, and then cross our fingers and hope that things will be fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime we try and calm the waters. How do we do this? We pass along as much info to the community as possible. We acknowledge the issue; explain the problem is being dealt with and provide regular updates. We must never keep people in the dark. If they do not know what is going on, or feel that as CM's we are not listening to their concerns, they will feel they their membership is not valued. Whether it be a site technical problem, a complaint a person has about another member's behaviour, or maybe a bone of contention someone has with one of the site rules; whatever the concern we need to respond quickly, and let people know that we are taking it seriously.
Bottom line - we mustn't be afraid to say sorry. We need to acknowledge the problem, get it fixed and then make sure we apologize, otherwise our community is going to get the impression that they are the bottom of our priority list when they should be at the top!
Sorry goes a long way, and our membership will be appreciative that we think enough of them to express it as often as we need to.