How To Prevent A United Situation At Your Station

(By Deborah Parenti) As bad as Sunday’s United Airlines incident was, the public handling of the situation has continued to compound it even further in what appears to be one bungled, weak attempt to quell one storm after another. While the first line of defense is to have a set of company policies in place designed to prevent or minimize the chance of such disastrous instances occurring to begin with, sometimes even the best efforts fail and bad situations happen. It is those times that cleaning up, chinning up, and putting things right, fall to public relations communicators.

In the second of our “This Is Your Captain, We Have a Situation” series, Renee Cassis, President and Owner of New York-based RC Communications Marketing, offers her perspective of the situation based on her years of experience in public relations and marketing.

Some readers might want to share this series with United, by the way. It sounds like they could probably use some better advice and, best of all, Radio Ink headlines are free.

Here are Renee’s thoughts…

“The first thing to do is take a breath. While there is a sense of urgency to respond immediately – particularly because of the speed of social media – if you don’t take a breath and think it through, you may not hit on the smartest response. Get your PR person or team on the phone or in your office right away.

If the crisis has already gone viral – as it had with United – let the feedback from the Internet provide you and your team with some insight. The video of the passenger being dragged off the plane and bloodied was all over the Internet, and the outrage of the other passengers and the public was clear. That should have been a clue on how to respond. Radio stations in local markets usually have a pretty good sense of the pulse of their communities…. listen to your audience, because they are not holding back their opinions.

Then, get that apology out there fast, and get it right the first time. The apology from United’s CEO failed to re-establish the brand’s image or trust with consumers. In fact, it added to the already significant damage. The apology was couched in airline-speak like “re-accommodate,” evoking a negative reaction from the public, who were obviously sympathetic to the passenger. Follow-up statements that attempted to defend United’s staff as following proper procedures and portray the passenger as belligerent made it worse. Maybe he was rude, but he had paid for his seat, and he was sitting in it. As the CEO or station manager, you must take the higher ground because you are setting the tone for the brand and its customer and client relations.

Say you’re sorry and stop talking! Unfortunately, you see similar bad apologies too often – they are weak, or disingenuous, or attempt to deflect blame elsewhere, including onto the customer. Remember… the customer is always right. Follow-up apologies that try to repair a mismanaged first one usually make the situation worse. It’s like trying to dig your way out of quicksand.

Here’s how it could have gone: “We are sorry for this unfortunate and terrible incident. This is not how we treat our customers. We are conducting a full investigation into what transpired, and we will take appropriate action. We will have an update in 24 hours.” In that scenario, you’re not promising a resolution or even all the answers, but you are taking responsibility and giving a timeframe for providing further details. The fact is, you don’t know yet where or how this all fell apart. Do you need to change your procedures and protocol, or do you need to reprimand or fire a rogue employee who went off the rails?

When something this awful goes viral, you’re going to be a target for unpleasant jokes and bad publicity, at least for a while. And when you’re a globally recognized brand like United, Jimmy Kimmel and the other late-night hosts are going to rake you over the coals. But you can douse the fire rather than fan the flames and win back your brand’s integrity by being sincere, respecting the press, and taking care of your customers and clients.”

Renee Cassis is President & Owner of RC Communications Marketing. She can be reached at 646-808-6505, [email protected]

Deborah Parenti is Publisher of Radio Ink Magazine and can be reached at [email protected]