Comments on: Dear United Airlines: Build Community Around This Dave Carroll Catastrophe

By: United Airlines Incident all over the Social Media space « Designing and Leading Instantly Responsive Organizations

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:11:57 +0000

[...] August, 2009 update: To be expected, there is a lot of buzz around this incident. A good analysis of United’s response can be found at Dan Greenfield. Some interesting suggestions for United were penned by Angela Connor. [...]

By: Angela Connor

Angela Connor — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:56:24 +0000

Thank you, Rolando for taking the time to post a comment. I believe I read something about UA using the video as training shortly after Scott posted his comment. I'll look for the link and send it to you. Scott, if you've learned anything, do let us know.

By: Rolando Peralta

Rolando Peralta — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:57:34 +0000

Great post Angela! I love your recommendations because I think that the only way to learn about an experience like this one, it’s take it to the grassroots of your company.
As Scott is pointing, I also would like to know how will UA be using the video(s) for training.
Another comment that I’d like to bring is the fact that when a company touch one single person, it tend to think that she/he is “alone”; and cases like Dave’s showed us that if you touch a person, you’re touching a network or a community or several communities (as we can see with a single Google Blog Search), that could be invisible, but it became NOTORIOUS.
Thanks a lot for your great post!
Cheers,

By: Scott Meis

Scott Meis — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:02:25 +0000

Some great ideas here Angela. I’d be curious to know if and how United is using the video as an internal training tool and to what extent that could be leveraged to prevent future mishaps and better baggage care. Kitschy idea with that last one. Certainly a lot of ways to use this as a constant reminder. Always makes me gag when I look out the window of a plane and see bags being tossed around without a care in the world.

By: Angela Connor

Angela Connor — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:08:11 +0000

Hello Allison: Thanks for taking the time to comment. Of course I “meant well,” and still mean well. Yes, it is nice that United agrees with your methods. I offer a different opinion and one approach isn’t necessarily the best, though I absolutely understand the points you make. We are clearly living in a new age, the conversation age and should be open to various opinions. We apparently disagree on the definition of backlash and the power of community. And I hope you know, that that’s okay. There is always more than one way to handle a situation, which is the point of my post. It is from my own perspective.

By: Allison

Allison — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:48:07 +0000

I know you meant well, but United apparently agrees with me that a low-key approach is best.

Anything they did to try to be too visible – commenting frequently on blogs and forums (!?!) – making their own video or embarking on any special ad campaign – would come across as trying to steal Dave’s thunder and would only create more backlash, not to mention even more publicity for Dave. They should stay off the stage and let Dave have his moment in the sun.

What United has done so far is fine — they have posted 13 Tweets referring to Dave or his situation, have said they took responsibility, apologized, rectified it, and, most importantly, have learned from it. And United is working with Dave for the 3rd video, which will be, in Dave’s words, a love story.

By: Angela Connor

Angela Connor — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:29:56 +0000

Heidi: thanks for providing the link. I watched Carroll's response on your post. You had some great ideas as well. I agree with you that they need to focus on changing things for the better. I am going to subscribe to your blog. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

By: Heidi Miller

Heidi Miller — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:24:58 +0000

Great advice! Thanks for taking the time to lay out everything that United could and should have done with their crisis communications.

To this list, I would add: Explain in comments and videos what you’re going to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Apologizing is one thing, taking positive action to rectify the situation is another. That’s what will change sentiment towards United. It’s not about never making mistakes; it’s about listening and taking appropriate action when you do.

(I wrote about this in my own blog here: http://talkitup.typepad.com/weblog/2009/07/customer-service-requests-falling-on-deaf-ears-make-a-youtube-video.html )