3 years ago, I worked on a community where about half the members I interviewed complained about the community manager.
She was too brusk, bordering on rude. She wasn’t the kind of person members wanted to help and build relationships with.
Her personality was undermining everything she wanted to achieve.
My efforts to make her aware of this were met with unsurprisingly curt responses.
So we took a different route. We ran an anonymous survey of community members. People could rate the community manager on different traits (helpfulness, knowledge, friendliness etc…) and give qualitative, constructive, suggestions as well.
The results were predictable. The feedback was honest and constructive, albeit with a pinch of bitterness over past interactions.
I shared the feedback privately with the community manager. It didn’t go well. She challenged the style of the questions, the bias of the people responding etc…etc…
But from that very day onwards, we slowly began to see her change. She became more friendly and generous with her time. She made more of an effort to get to know members and understand their emotions. She also began to build relationships with a few members.
It’s really hard to see your own flaws (I continue to speak from experience). You might disagree with collective feedback, but it’s hard to ignore it. Get someone else to run a survey of community members and gather feedback on how you’re doing. The results might completely change how you run your community.
