How a Tweet almost brought an Airline to a Screeching Halt…
Posted by Darren Enta on Thu, Mar 18, 2010
A single incident on a single flight, one of several hundreds or thousands of flights scheduled on any day could potentially be deterimental to the public perception of an airline. Southwest Airlines recently discovered the importance of reputation management and how a quick response to an attack on their reputation via social networking is integral to offset the backlash created by a disgruntled passenger.
If you haven't heard the story on any major television network, read about it on
line or any printed publication, recently film director Kevin Smith encountered some difficulty while travelling from Oakland to Burbank. Smith, who by his own description considers himself "fat", purchased three return tickets for a convention he was attending. On his return to Burbank he was ejected from the plane citing safety regulations. Smith, renowned for his sharp wit as a screenplay writer did what most customers that have encountered unsatisfactory experiences do, he complained. Smith feeling rightfully humiliated and wrongfully ejected from a flight to which he had purchased three tickets took to his Twitter account and seemed to know the gravity of his actions posting: "You [messed] with the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater!"
Complaints and negative experiences are unavoidable in customer service and the impact of the complaint can be very different based on the situation. For example, if the manager of a restaurant knows that a food critic for a major publication is eating in his dinning room he is well aware that this particular customer's negative experience would be far more detrimental than that of other patrons. This is due to their ability to share their opinion with a much larger group of people than most would through the traditional means of word of mouth.
Southwest was very fortunate to have a diligent employee who was monitoring the company's Twitter account (over a weekend) and was able to negate some of the reputation attacks which proceeded to overwhelm the company's customer service department. Several customer service attempts to resolve the situation were posted on Twitter and attempts to contact Smith via his Twitter account which had become viral were noted by those who had joined in attacking Southwest's reputation on Smith's behalf. Several individuals following the incident went as far as defending Southwest and agreeing that Smith should have been removed from the plane while others commended Southwest's attempts at a providing a satisfactory resolution. Southwest's admirable attempts at a resolution were reported on Mashable.com.
The aftermath of this incident included Smith recording podcasts which were available on his website and through Apple's Itunes which millions have access to. A public apology was offered by Southwest airlines as well as an undisclosed amount of money spent to combat the negative publicity generated by this story.
Another interesting aspect of this incident was the documentation of the entire exchange between Southwest and Southwest supporters and Smith and Smith supporters for casual observers to view and formulate opinions regarding the handling of the situation. The lesson to be learned by any company that is reliant on its public reputation is that any customer now has the ability through social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to make a very public situation out of what was once a containable resolution....so make sure you are using a SMART social media monitoring tool!