5 BUSINESS DISASTERS THAT YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID OF AND WHY

When starting your own business, at the end of the day you’re after one thing: To make sure everything works out the way it was planned. But sometimes, planning isn’t enough. You need to get the opinions of other people, have it tested a ton of times and make sure it’s as inspected as a clean car. 

Here are five quick pointers to avoid your business running downhill: 

1. Don’t leave your employees unattended: Especially the new ones. There are times in the workplace where your crew will surely get bored, they’ll think of something to lift up that sleepy energy instead of being productive. Domino’s Pizza learned this the hard way when two of their employees made a video out of boredom in the very kitchen of the restaurant, where they cooked a pizza that with the most unlikely ingredients until it was ready to be served. With the massive negative responses of social media, the pizza chain predictably fired the two employees and had a hard time regaining their sanitary reputation from their customers.
2. Never launch a project that you’re not prepared for: If you’re going to launch a product, campaign, project, etc., make sure you’re prepared for better and for worse. Know how your customers will take action, and be aware of how you market your product. Unfortunately, KFC didn’t seem to have payed attention to their new promo meal launch. They made an advertising partnership with celebrity-host OprahWinfery, promoting a coupon for free chicken, causing a nationwide stamped on all branches of the famous chicken chain. Swamped with millions of customers, most of the branches didn’t expect the number of customers and had to deal with the angry ones due to their unpreparedness of the situation.
3. When launching a project by surprise in public, make sure community officials are aware: If you’re afraid of a failing business then try to avoid scaring your customers. Make sure to know the difference between alarming people from getting their attention, otherwise you might find yourself resigning and having your employees take responsibility. Cartoon network’s campaign to promote a new show named “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” can be a good example. The project involved placing lit-up signs on random locations around the city. Up close, it looked like a little monster waving hello, but from afar, it looked like a bomb that triggered nearby residence to assume it was a threat. Police responded to the call and were clearly unaware of the campaign as we. With the public panic, Cartoon Network’s head resigned and the men who deployed the signs were filed with hoax criminal charges.
4. Never offend your customers: When launching a product, make sure it doesn’t have any sour statement. Customers can get aggressive with that. Abercombie & Fitch weren’t too careful with that when they’ve launched a new line of statement t-shirts that are racist and explicit use of words. This of course caused negative impressions on their customers, causing boycotts, protests and media criticism.
5. But most of all, never lie to your customers: This has to be one of the most common businessdisasterthat never escapes the list. Most products today tend to exaggerate the quality of their products they forget the safety of their customers. What customers hate the most is false advertising, people even made a ton of lists of the products that are a fraud. 

These businesses have set out an example to the public to make sure it won’t be done again. So make sure none of the examples of the past happen to you. If not, you might find yourself in the yearly business disasters list, and it’s difficult rebuilding one’s reputation.