For those of you that haven't been following the SAA debacle, here is a short summary:
It's simple - SAA's client service isn't up to scratch (as decided by public vote) and, despite constant ranting across the blogosphere, it hasn't shown so much as a hint that it is taking notice and improving upon previous failings. This isn't to say it is not doing anything, but perception is everything and the perception is that it is doing nothing…
What's to be done?
From an ORM perspective, there is a great deal that can be done about this. Firstly, all companies - especially those the size of SAA - should be tracking conversations online. They should also be using this information to focus their customer service on what their customers want and need.
But seeing as Pandora's Box has already been opened, the situation has moved into the realm of online reputation crisis management (ORCM) - think of it as the ugly twin of a word-of-mouth explosion.
Thankfully, there is some existing reading on the topic. A couple of years ago Rob Stokes, Quirk eMarketing's CEO, wrote a post entitled 10 steps to Recover from an Online Brand Attack. These steps can be applied to SAA's example and can hopefully shed some light on the situation:
In The Weekender article, an SAA representative said that consumers had the right to express dissatisfaction. She also said that consumers should use existing routes to raise their complaints. From a client service perspective, this is a clear no-brainer - if this route worked, then the entire crisis would have been diverted. Moreover, from an ORCM perspective, its approach was hugely counterproductive. While its intention to resolve the problem is noble, its comment tells the public one thing: “You, the online community, aren't important enough for us to engage with you directly. You must come to us”.
This is a common error among corporates who believe they are above their consumers and therefore behave without humility ultimately causing them more problems.
A blog search for “South African Airways” returns upwards of 16 000 posts. This means that there have been 16 000 instances of people been concerned enough to invest their own time in giving their, unsolicited, thoughts. If SAA followed the conversation, it would have resolved SAAsucks problems over a year and a half ago and turned many brand terrorists into brand evangelists. At the same time, it would get real-time feedback on what consumers do and don't want from their airline service. This in turn could (and should) drive change.
SAA should have put its pride aside and engaged directly with Hartman's original post. Unfortunately, that ship has already sailed, so it should now start engaging with each mention about its brand as they happen. This will allow it to put out the many little fires (flashpoints) before they become runaway blazes.
While I have no doubt that Hartman's complaints are legitimate, I cannot vouch for the rest of the blogosphere and I'm certain there is some commentary which is exaggerated or even possibly false.
SAA should begin with these inflammatory conversations and gently point out the factually incorrect elements of individuals' blog posts and comments. It is vital that these responses are truly humble and absolutely honest - a harsh approach here could spell out disaster. It is, however, vital that SAA engage and set the record straight.
Then it's time for a little humble pie. As I mentioned earlier, SAA does have some client service issues and it needs to engage with these bloggers, accept fault (potentially publicly) and illustrate ways it is looking to improve. The first place to start would be on SAAsucks.com but more about this in point seven.
Consumers often use search engines to find the best deals and research shows that consumers make up their mind within the first 5 - 7 seconds of “meeting the brand”. As such, if SAAsucks made it onto the homepage for a search for SAA, the results would no doubt have direct and fatal consequences for SAA sales. Considering that an airline such as Delta Airlines gets upwards of 1.2 million searches a month, the loss for SAA is potentially huge.
In order to remove the offending pages from the SERPs (search engine results pages), there are a number of solutions but, unfortunately, none are quick and simple, and it would take some consultancy and implementation from an SEO professional to get the desired results.
As an aside, this SAAsucks page has made it into the SAA Wikipedia entry - a page which is very credible in the eyes of the search engines; this is definitely something which SAA could and should update to save face.
Once the conversation has been found, SAA should regularly contribute to the blogs and forums themselves. This will result in the development of a human mouthpiece for the company through which it can defend itself and share company successes. It is, however, vital that it does engage on the community's terms (the power has already shifted away from the company).
A simple example would be to inform the public of what the progress is in resolving a particular problem. This will result in a fundamental shift in the public's perception: from “an old stagnant airline” to that of one which is “proactively looking to improve”.
In the case of SAAsucks.com, SAA would be wise to keep its conversation offline for the moment (email/phone/face-to-face meeting) and be completely honest. The best solution would be to organise a meeting with Hartman, serve a formal apology and, more importantly, open the floor to resolving the problems. Once common ground has been found, SAA should comment on the blog and request feedback from the community and explain their plan of action.
Once the conversation has started, SAA shouldn't just step back and wait for this to happen again. If the community is truly interested in improving the quality of service (which I believe is the case), then a continual conversation will provide SAA with the fundamental knowledge to effectively improve on its client service. Continual engagement will also provide SAA with the credibility to push back on factually incorrect commentary while giving it continual direct, unsolicited, client feedback.
In the original Stokes post, he said, “If you truly care what your customers think then most of this will come naturally.”
My approach is slightly different - while I'm sure SAA care what its customers think, SAA is a business and decisions need to be based on financial reward. So, for SAA here is a short financial justification:
Let me be the first to point out that SAA is government-owned so the maths is somewhat flawed. Yet this does provide a fantastic business case for any company toying with the idea of managing its reputation.
Bigger brands such as SAA are always going to get public commentary and as the typical consumer engagement model is changing, companies need to remodel how they engage with their consumers. This remodeling includes an update to their communications plan, roles and responsibility and view of consumers. This will allow them to be one step ahead of future problems.
