Kelly: Basically, when a company messes up and has a PR disaster, much like the situation that United has gotten itself into, they clearly don't know what to do to get themselves out of that mess. Sometimes, a lot of the problem arises because the company may have their own marketing or PR staff, but there is a culture whereby the staff have been there for years and they are too afraid or nervous to tell the big bosses that they are doing something really stupid. In getting a firefighter like me in during a crisis, I can evaluate the situation from a third party perspective and I am not afraid to tell the CEO, the MD, the founder, the bloody Messiah of the company that s/he has made a huge mistake. It's a lot easier for me to do that because they expect me to do that, that's what they bring me in for.
Limpeh: In short, you're talking about the 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome.
Kelly: It seems obvious but it happens a lot - that is why companies get themselves into such a mess sometimes because the crew of the ship don't dare to contradict the captain even if he is steering the ship directly into a huge iceberg. If this culture persists, then the big bosses end up being surrounded by yes-men who will praise them for whatever decision they make, even bad ones - can you imagine one of Kim Jong-Un's general's contradicting him or telling him that he is about to make a bad decision? Hell no, nobody dares to contradict or criticize Kim Jong-Un. Criticize Kim and you might be executed for it! Fortunately, companies that find themselves in that situation usually have the sense of call in a third party like me to help them resolve whatever crisis they find themselves in. It is the same reason why fighting couples go for counselling, they can try to resolve their differences between themselves, but engaging a third party counselor or mediator can do a lot in terms of helping them work out an amicable solution.
Kelly: It took the CEO Oscar Munoz three attempts to apologize and each time he tried to apologize, he looked insincere and chose the wrong words. Good grief. Why didn't anyone from their PR department coach him on what to say and do? It seems that he is suffering from the 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome - who amongst his staff is going to tell him where he is going desperately wrong? What are their corporate communications team doing? Does he have to read the criticisms in the press, on social media because his own people are so terrified of criticizing him?
Limpeh: What was his biggest mistake?
Kelly: I think it was his inability to understand the mood of the public, how public opinion had turned against United instantly the moment those videos of Dr Dao being dragged off the plane went viral. It is not rocket science - all you had to do was look at the comments left on social media and within like 20 seconds, you could have come to that conclusion. You can't defend the indefensible - if you do that, then you develop a secondary story about how you are trying to justify the unjustifiable. You have got to think about the consequences of your actions before you say or do anything - is the public going to react negatively or positively? Seriously, any decent PR person can answer that question for you. I get the feeling that he is simply a very old man who is rather old school in his approach to corporate communications - like he just doesn't get social media and doesn't understand the repercussions of this PR disaster.
Limpeh: Yes, I seem to be seeing new spoof videos coming up everyday on social media, lampooning United. I particularly liked the Jujitsu self defence class - teaching us how to prepare ourselves when boarding a United flight!
Limpeh: What would you have done, if you were advising United when this story broke?
Kelly: You need to understand what the public wants: they want to see someone held accountable for harming poor Dr Dao in that appalling way. Preferably, we want to see someone arrested, dragged off in handcuffs and thrown in a cell in a police station in the most humiliating manner. In short, when you have a mob baying for blood, you've gotta give them something or you're in big trouble because they're not just going to go away. Oscar Munoz failed to understand the power of a mob baying for blood on social media, I would have told him to have sacrifice a junior employee at United for messing up the ticketing situation, maybe blame the pilot for demanding the forced removal of Dr Dao and of course, as you've said in your last piece, put most blame on the one police officer who clearly physically assaulted Dr Dao in the video, causing those horrific injuries. Munoz had nothing to gain by defending these people who had made these catastrophic mistakes - absolutely nothing to gain. I'd be wondering why he wasn't even angry with them for making such mistakes, in most companies, when you screw up like that, you can expect your boss to get angry with you. Munoz didn't do that, he seemed to have been defending them instead and that's not going to satisfy your critics.
Limpeh: On one hand, you could say, it is his company and his decision what he wants to do with his employees when they make a mistake or three. But could it be that his employees are unionized workers and he cannot easily dismiss them or discipline them just in case the unions get involved? The police officer who assaulted Dr Dao would certainly have a union behind him who are obliged to help him regardless of what he did on that plane.
Kelly: A union can protect a worker against unfair dismissal, a union cannot say to an employer, "you cannot discipline this person for the mistake he made because he is a union member." It is a not a "get out of jail free" card. But let me give you an example with a company I dealt with a while ago, there was a problem with the product which led to the serious injury of a customer. I'm bound by confidentiality not to name the product, but let's just say it was a PR disaster that was in the news. The company blamed a fairly junior employee for the mistake made in the factory and sacked the person who caused the mistake - justice had to be seen to be done. What the press didn't know was that the employee who was 'sacrificed' in a public display of "punishment" was compensated for the sacking, he was given some money, a decent amount in fact. It meant that this person was going to agree to take the blame and not contest the sacking. None of this was made public of course, but the baying mob was given a scapegoat. United's refusal to offer a few scapegoats to the public is a very costly error. Come on, you need to give the public what they want! So in its place, Oscar Munoz has become the scapegoat. You can either say he's noble or stupid - I think he's very stupid.
Limpeh: I agree. Just how bad is this for United then, Kelly? How is this hurting them? Can it get any worse?
Limpeh: If United then say, we're not going to give in to extortion, we'll see you in court, what could their defence be in that case? Imagine you are advising United, what line of defence could they take in this case then?
Kelly: Well that then becomes a legal matter. I'm the PR consultant, the "firefighter", not a lawyer but I think it is pretty straight forward what stance they will have to take. Dr Dao was instructed by the pilot to leave the plane, but Dr Dao refused to. At that point, Dr Dao was on the wrong side of the law because he refused to cooperate with instructions from the pilot and when you buy an airline ticket, there are so many legal clauses in the fine print that basically mean that you are obliged to comply with their terms and conditions. At that point, they called the police onto the plane and it was out of their hands - what then happened was neither their fault nor responsibility. Dr Dao was assaulted by a member of the Chicago police, not by a United employee. So by right, Dr Dao should be suing the Chicago police for the excessive use of force which led to his horrific injuries, rather than blaming United. It was a case of police brutality - the incident may have happened on a United plane, but the fault and culpability clearly lies with the Chicago police and definitely not United. Don't blame United for what happened - it wasn't our fault and we are not the bad guys here!
Kelly: But you see, United is a huge company with deep pockets that cares about their PR as that affects their business. They have a stock price that is hurting real bad at the moment. Dr Dao is better off trying to sue United because that's the way he'll get the most amount of money. You can try to sue the Chicago police for police brutality, but a judge is never going to award you that much money even if you do win a case against them because they are the police at the end of the day. You could say that United created that situation in the first place by trying to eject four passengers from the plane to make room for four of their own employees, but that situation could have been resolved a lot less violently if you didn't get that psychopath of a police officer assaulting Dr Dao like that. Three police officers boarded that plane, only one got violent and assaulted Dr Dao. The other two stood back and didn't do much - but they didn't stop their crazy colleague from beating up Dr Dao either. Somebody needs to be held accountable for this!
Limpeh: United has shown contrition - well, better late than never, but we've not heard much from the Chicago police about this case. Really? Am I the only one who find that rather disturbing Kelly, given how much of the responsibility should like with them, rather than just United, in this case? Or are United equally culpable in this case?
Kelly: The police have never really had a great track record when it comes to handling PR, oh no. For starters, they don't have a big budget to hire experts like me to help them sort their shit out! They try their best with a limited budget and also, they are heavily dependent on the good will that the public gives them - we all depend on the police to keep us safe, to protect us from criminals. So when a police officer does something wrong, people tend to be more forgiving because even if that police officer did do something terrible like beat up Dr Dao, he would have spent months, even years, doing a very valuable job in protecting our communities, in keeping us safe. It sounds simplistic but you'll be amazed the kind of respect that people like soldiers, policemen, basically anyone in the armed forces get in America. There's a lot of talk about soldiers, "fighting for our freedom" or even "risking their lives for our freedom". You can tell - a lot of people are happy to condemn United on social media, but how many are condemning the Chicago police?
Limpeh: But the Chicago police cares far less about a PR disaster as it doesn't have a share price, unlike United.
Kelly: That probably has a lot to do with it. They have far less to lose than United. You can't boycott the police.
Limpeh: What can United do to win back some goodwill then? Surely they need to make amends soon.
Kelly: Firstly they need to draw a line under this incident, we need to get to a point where we can reasonably say, "case closed, this is the end of it" before we can move on. With an ongoing federal investigation by the US department of transport and the Chicago’s Department of Aviation into the misconduct of the officer who assaulted Dr Dao - these investigations typically take a long time because these investigators are bureaucratic and old fashioned. And then there's the law suit that Dr Dao can bring against United for his treatment and injuries - he can drag this out and get a lot of attention in the media for quite a while yet because his legal team will know that for everyday this PR disaster drags on, United's stock value will take a hit, passengers will continue to boycott United and they will lose money. Right now, other passengers who have been treated badly by United are speaking out and the media is gladly printing their stories when before, they weren't that interested. United need to bring closure to this case sooner rather than later and it is going to cost them of course: pay off Dr Dao, give him what he wants to settle out of court. Admit your guilt to the federal investigation to make their job easier and deal with the consequences. Then you're seen as the party who is co-operating, whilst you can then effectively through the Chicago Department of Aviation under the bus and say, "we've done our part to make things right, now it's just a case of police brutality and that has nothing to do with us."
Kelly: Yeah but let me give you an analogy which sums up the situation - my sister had a pipe burst in her kitchen and it was a disaster: like her kitchen was being flooded, they opened the back door to let some of that water flow out into the garden. They tried to turn off the mains to turn off the supply of water to the house but they just couldn't get the lever to turn. At this stage, they've put sandbags between the kitchen and the living room to stop the water from going into the living room as they have carpets there. The plumber turns up and says, "yup, I can fix this, but it is going to cost you as it is a major repair and an emergency call out on a Sunday. Here is my price." You know what my brother-in-law starts doing? He starts arguing and bargaining with the plumber because he refused to be extorted under such circumstances - my brother-in-law clearly had a figure in his head he was willing to pay the plumber and this was way more than that figure. All this while, the burst pipe is still gushing water into their kitchen. The plumber then said, "fine if you don't want to pay the price, I'm just gonna pack up my tools and leave. Good luck getting someone else then."
Limpeh: But surely at some stage, United will have to think about their next step - what next then? What can we do to improve our relationship with the public? What can we do to win back some goodwill as a brand?
Kelly: Well, once you have finally brought the matter to a close, then you can talk about other more imaginative marketing campaigns, contests, supporting various charitable causes, helping local communities in cities where they fly to, surprising passengers with free gifts in order to build up good will again. But imagine if they tried to do something like that before this matter is concluded, they would only be met with cynicism. The public would be like, "yeah right, you think that we're going to buy this when there's still that ongoing court case and investigation with Dr Dao?" Now Cathay Pacific did a rather cute flash mob Christmas campaign in 2013 in Hong Kong International Airport - it was so successful that they have repeated it several times, but most people remember the original, the first one. Can you imagine if United tried to do something like that now? Even if they sang like angels and danced like professionals, somebody is going to photoshop Dr Dao being dragged away into the video or better still, a spoof will emerge involving a song and dance routine with an older Asian passenger is being dragged across the airport or tarmac - you can be sure that spoof is going to go viral instantly. This PR disaster is going to be a dark shadow that will hang over any goodwill campaign that United tries to do for a long time. Oh this incident will continue to haunt them for many years.
Kelly: Yes they can do that but will it repair the damage to their reputation even if they do sell some cheap tickets? No. They will have to drop their prices quite significantly to have that kind of effect - it is called a fire sale and sure, it may persuade some people to book those flights if they price those flights cheaply enough, but what they're not going to make any money when they slash their prices to that extent. What do you think is going to happen the moment they put their prices back to normal? No, a fire sale will not have any long term impact when it comes to cultivating any brand loyalty. Airlines make a lot of money during busy periods like school holidays and Christmas, where they charge a lot more than normal for flights - that is simply when demand far outstrips supply. You are in a crowded market and there are other airlines to choose from. A fire sale at this stage will just look desperate and it won't help United in the long run fix their PR problem. There are no easy solutions for United at this stage, they are better off focusing on bringing closure to this case as quickly as possible before we can start devising strategies to regain trust and goodwill.
Limpeh: Kelly, it has been such a pleasure talking with you. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us on this.
Don't really care about the United issue since SG has lots of carriers so lots of choices going to international routes.
ReplyDeleteWhat i want to know is what your thoughts are now that May has called a snap GE in Jun, which is like 2 months away.
It is a lot for me to process Choaniki and I'm busy at work - it's probably something I need to reply in my next blog post, if you'd bear with me and wait for that, please.
DeleteHere you go: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/my-thoughts-on-uk-2017-snap-election.html
DeleteMoral of the story: PR is hard, when the organization has a PR problem, consult the experts before jumping to social media
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reuters.com/article/american-airline-passenger-idUSL3N1HU03U
ReplyDeleteFrom United Airlines to now this, US airlines just can't seem to catch a break recently.