Editorial
The Gist
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Don’t underestimate the power of social media. In today’s day and age, customer dissatisfaction can be amplified and shared to users all over the world.
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Respond to backlash appropriately. Mishandling public customer qualms may lead to a drop in consumer support for your company.
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Know how to deal with angry customers. Having a plan to deal with customers “gone rogue” can help pacify them before things get out of hand.
Social media has effectively turned customers into broadcasters. We’ve all heard the old statistic that a satisfied customer will tell 2-3 people about their experience with a company while a dissatisfied one will tell 8-10. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter — where reviews can be shared thousands of times — have only amplified those numbers.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen dissatisfied consumers damage brand equity after taking to social media and posting something that went viral. I found this example from Sir Patrick Stewart particularly amusing:
All I wanted to do was set up a new account with @TWCable_NYC but 36hrs later I've lost the will to live.
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) September 14, 2012
Today though, I want to look at something different. These next few customers were so exasperated by the experience they’d received that they spent their time and or money to vent their anger at the companies that had done the wrong thing by them.
United Breaks Guitars ... And Customer Loyalty
As he was sitting on the tarmac, Dave Carroll looked out the window of the Delta Airlines jet to see baggage handlers throwing his band’s guitar cases around as they were being unloaded. He complained to the airline after discovering his $3,500 Taylor guitar had been broken, but their response was less than sympathetic. They claimed he had waited longer than 24 hours to process a claim, and was therefore not eligible for compensation.
For nine months, Dave went back and forth with United trying to get his claim processed. The response was always a firm and consistent “no.” In complete frustration, Dave wrote a song about his experience called “United Breaks Guitars” and posted it on YouTube.
It went viral, and within four weeks, United’s stock price had dropped by 10% — a decrease in valuation by $180 million. Thirteen years later, that video has accumulated 22 million views. Combined with the negative press coverage that accompanied its release, this incident has become a PR disaster.
Related Article: Ratings and Reviews Help Customers Make Smart Buying Decisions
Don’t Fly @BritishAirways Because of Poor CX
However, United isn’t the only airline to be publicly humiliated by an angry customer. When British Airways lost the luggage of Hasan Syed’s father (and then neglected to reply to his emails), Hasan went beyond venting to his 500+ Twitter followers. In response, the businessman paid $1,000 for a series of promoted tweets.
Don't fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.
— hasan (@HVSVN) September 2, 2013
In addition to this, he also tweeted “BritishAirways is the worst airline ever. Lost my luggage & can’t even track it down. Absolutely pathetic.” and “Thanks for ruining my EU business trip #britishairways. I shouldn’t have flown @BritishAirways. Never flying with you again.”
These tweets were directed at the 302,000 followers of British Airways. Hasan vowed to continue running them until “BA fixes this mess.”
Eight hours after the first tweet was picked up by the news, the airline meekly replied, "Sorry for the delay in responding, our twitter feed is open 0900-1700 GMT." After being contacted by the BBC, a spokesman apologized for the inconvenience and assured Hasan the bag was out for delivery.
Angry Customer Vents Via Billboard
In 2012, South African businessman George Prokas bought a phone for his son from the telecommunications provider, Cell C. Soon after, the phone had an issue and needed to be repaired, so Prokas sent the phone to Cell C. Being still relatively new, he expected it to be replaced. What he didn’t expect was the runaround.
Here's what Prokas told Forbes Africa: “Eventually we were getting bounced from pillar to post. After about eight months, I kept going back to the store. I went there, my daughter went there, my wife went there. I screamed the whole of Sandton City (shopping mall) down. We were just falling on deaf ears, and in the meantime, I was paying the account. I didn’t have the phone but was still paying for the account. The last time I went to Cell C, I had an argument with a guy who runs the store after telling him I was going to stop paying. He laughed at me and said, ‘you can’t stop paying because you signed a contract’. I said, ‘I beg your pardon; I put my surname on a piece of paper to honor an obligation on a service you have not given me, and until I get the phone back I am never going to pay,’” he recalls.
True to his word, Prokas stopped paying for a phone he didn’t have. When trying to purchase a car a few months later, he was rejected for being a bad debtor. Cell C had listed Prokas with the credit bureau because of the unpaid bills.
He sought to have the bill waived by Cell C and to be removed from the list of bad debtors, but got nowhere with the company. So on a busy intersection in Sandton, just outside of Johannesburg, Prokas paid for a huge billboard stating that Cell C was, “The most useless service provider in SA”.
Rather than try to solve the customer’s problem, Cell C chose to fight him in court, taking legal action against Prokas and the shopping center to have the banner removed. They lost and were ordered to pay Prokas’ legal costs. The billboard remained. The CEO has since expressed his disappointment that the company failed its customer.
Related Article: Customer Experience Conundrum: Fix Bad Experiences or Make Good Ones Better?
So…What Lessons Can CX Leaders Learn?
Regularly Conduct a Policy Audit
Policies exist to ensure organizations operate efficiently and in a uniform manner. But if they infuriate customers or prevent frontline staff from serving customers in line with the organization’s CX vision, they aren’t doing their job. Periodically audit your organization’s policies to ensure they help you deliver your aspirational experience. Your voice of the customer data should give you a great indication of where to start.
Empower Frontline Staff
Customers are much less likely to “go rogue” if their needs are met when they first interact with the company. It’s important to delegate authority to frontline employees to enable them to take care of customers immediately. Give them the power to go outside of day-to-day policies if they believe they’re acting with both the customer’s and the organization’s best interests at heart. Have a process in place to review any out-of-policy decisions and, if appropriate, use them as training opportunities for a larger customer service team.
Create an Escalation Path
Finally, customers need to know their grievances are truly being heard. They must know they can escalate their issue within the organization if they’re not satisfied with the response from a frontline employee. To make this process easier for them, create an escalation path with each step given a higher delegation authority to make the situation right.
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The CEO should sit at the end of the path because he or she will make the final judgment. When it’s potentially a $180 million call (as it was in the case with United), it’s definitely the CEO’s to make.
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