Posted in
Social Media
Just last month, Dave Carroll and his band posted a YouTube video highlighting an episode of failed customer service by United Airlines after the baggage handlers at O'Hare Airport in Chicago tossed their guitars around and broke his high end Taylor Guitar and refused to compensate him. His video has been played over 3 MILLION times. We all should know that one upset customer makes more noise than 10 happy customers and perhaps even more than 3 ecstatic customers. Even so, in the past it was hardly possible to reach and connect with such a large audience with a negative message so effectively. The primary lesson is not about social media's influence and how United could have used it to their advantage. It is that United needs to improve their baggage handling training, oversight and controls and then back that up with excellent customer service that doesn't turn the more infrequent mistakes into disasters. Were the baggage handlers trained and supervised properly? Did Customer Service have the leeway and empowerment to make decisions in the best long term interests of United Airlines? Did the baggage handlers and Customer Service have a shared pride and goal for how customers should be treated? If your company is delving into social media without having the fundamentals right, then think twice. If you hadn't thought about what resources in your company will be allocated to taking on social media as a block of time, then think twice and read what this firm has to say. Now that we have our thoughts straight, what might United have done after the fact?
Just last month, Dave Carroll and his band posted a YouTube video highlighting an episode of failed customer service by United Airlines after the baggage handlers at O'Hare Airport in Chicago tossed their guitars around and broke his high end Taylor Guitar and refused to compensate him. His video has been played over 3 MILLION times. We all should know that one upset customer makes more noise than 10 happy customers and perhaps even more than 3 ecstatic customers. Even so, in the past it was hardly possible to reach and connect with such a large audience with a negative message so effectively. The primary lesson is not about social media's influence and how United could have used it to their advantage. It is that United needs to improve their baggage handling training, oversight and controls and then back that up with excellent customer service that doesn't turn the more infrequent mistakes into disasters. Were the baggage handlers trained and supervised properly? Did Customer Service have the leeway and empowerment to make decisions in the best long term interests of United Airlines? Did the baggage handlers and Customer Service have a shared pride and goal for how customers should be treated? If your company is delving into social media without having the fundamentals right, then think twice. If you hadn't thought about what resources in your company will be allocated to taking on social media as a block of time, then think twice and read what this firm has to say. Now that we have our thoughts straight, what might United have done after the fact?
Disaster media relations experts focus on depowering the intrigue, sincerely facing the music and openly making it right by immediately assessing what the failures may have been, admitting to the failures accurately (without dwelling on them - we did it, concisely this is what we did) and publicly apologizing with all sincerity and openly fixing the problem with the injured party. (Most) customers are willing to accept that companies and the humans that comprise them are fallible. They make mistakes. You need to show that you don't intend to make mistakes as a policy or routine behavior because you somehow thought that you could get away with it. In the words of Scooby Doo villains, "If only those meddling kids hadn't stumbled on this!"
Think of social media techniques as a new way of executing the disaster recovery plan, not as a smoke screen for a lack of a plan. And by all means, use social media, as Taylor Guitars did, to amplify what you are doing right.
Watch the videos below: 1) Dave Carroll's first video of three that shares his story in a calm, humorous and memorable way. 2) Taylor Guitar's video sharing tips on how to travel with a guitar and a new service to repair any damaged guitar. 3) a sample of a prior United apology.
After you watch the videos, take a look at this excellent article by Nielsen and their take on what we can learn from the incident.
How Taylor Guitars is turning the buzz into sales.
Prior United Airlines Apology
