So yet another big brand name has fallen afoul of the social media powers-that-be.
Last spring, Dave Carroll and his band, The Sons of Maxwell were traveling on tour and were going to Nebraska from Halifax. After what was supposed to be a simple layover, he had looked out the window and saw that his guitar was “being heaved without regard” and after inspecting it later on, noticed that his Taylor guitar, worth about $3,500 was damaged beyond repair. When he tried to seek reimbursement from the airline, he just wound up getting the run-around and being sent from claim agent to representative to customer service person in New Delhi and then finally to a live person in Chicago who refuted his claim and gave the “final” word.
As infuriated as Carroll has become, he wasn’t going to take this denial lying down. When he was told by the airline representative in Chicago the final “no”, he indicated that he would write a series of songs about his bad customer service experience and let it spread across the Internet. And what a great viral success it has become – with more than 3.2 million views in the past two weeks (Carroll’s original goal was 1 million in 1 year). Oh, and what airline spawned all of this?
United.
I’m pretty surprised that with all these customer service ills that have befallen these large companies and the lack of social media response to them – all because the reactions have happened online. In United’s case, they are on most major networks, including Twitter, on YouTube, Facebook and other sites. And it isn’t like I’m the first person to write about this issue – Advertising Age has extensively covered it in several articles on its website. So why has United been so slow in their response? Could it be that they’re hoping to wear down everyone into having them go away? Or perhaps they just don’t care? The problem with that is people just won’t “wear down”…not after hearing a jingle like Carroll’s song “United Breaks Guitars” and the publicity it has garnered. And they should care. It’s bringing all airlines into the limelight over their inability to provide quality customer service. And with the economy in the shape that it is and people already reluctant to travel to save money, wouldn’t the airlines really want to put more effort into getting people to actually like flying?
As I’m writing this blog post, I’ve recently completed a trip back to the East Coast to visit some friends and family. I didn’t fly United Airlines, but everytime when I landed, the main flight attendant always got on the intercom and said what I now know to be somewhat of a meaningless phrase: “We know you have your choice of airlines and we appreciate you choosing us.” Really? Do airlines such as United really appreciate our choosing them to fly? I suppose they think that it’s either a fly or stay home mentality. Well with the way technology has improved, flying may not be a necessity anymore. Even businesses are choosing not to fly people to meetings and are resorting to live web conferences using software like Skype, Tokbox, or webinars to converse with their colleagues. Even in Carroll’s video post do you hear the retort that he’s not going to fly United Airlines anymore and will probably just drive instead.
So is United Airlines really that insensitive or do they not get it? Well I think that they’re not insensitive, but they are definitely slow. Notice that all of this incident surrounding Carroll’s guitar was done last year. He’s jumped through hoops and talked to countless people and all with the same result: No. Now look what happens when he escalates it on his own volition. One year later he posts the video on YouTube and it reaches instant success with over three million views in just two weeks. Word has been spread on Twitter, blogs, and other social networks. NOW United is paying attention and you can see it on their Twitter account.
If you notice the date of the tweet on when they’ve acknowledged the issue, it was only AFTER the video has been posted and it simply said that it “struck a chord” with them. Perhaps the lesson learned here is that if you’re not happy with the results or response you’re getting from your customer service representatives, you should escalate your issue not to their manager but to the public and create a flash mob mentality to raise more awareness towards your issue. Only when the video was posted online and garnered considerable press and publicity did United Airlines notice that the issue was important to them.
Every time I hear about a issue surrounding companies failing to understand what to do in a crisis, I’m reminded about a presentation I heard given by Shel Holtz. In the talk, he addressed the use of social media by companies to get ahead of the curve and help effectively manage any crisis (no matter how big or small) may happen or affect the brand or the company. He outlines eight steps to make your public relations efforts work for you in case you happen to have a “moment” like United Airlines:
- Respond quickly, accurately, professionally, with care.
- Be transparent and accessible.
- Treat perceptions as fact.
- Acknowledge mistakes.
- Tailor messages to address the “angry” party.
- Note other side’s concerns.
- Make no public confrontations.
- Emphasize existing relationships.
Hopefully by following these steps, you’ll never have to go through these ordeals. However, should you ever encounter yourself facing such a challenge, hopefully your “angry” party won’t come up with a great jingle like Carroll did.
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