Twitter was responsible for forcing customer service actions out of an organization, whether they were prepared or not. As reported in “Southwest Airlines in ‘epic’ social media fail with Kevin Smith,” Southwest Airlines was dragged out of the form letter closet with the recent public relations scandal involving filmmaker Kevin Smith. Before the airline giant could regroup after their customer relations faux pas, Twitter users took on the role of advocates and took them to the carpet demanding a response. This unexpected response forced Southwest Airlines to apologize publically to both Mr. Smith and the Twitter users as a whole. This has set a precedent for social media and public relations as a whole. Are the days of too late form letter apologies and complimentary products over? I believe organizations need to take note of this shift in power and public opinion, and train their personnel accordingly.
Melody K. Smith, Feb. 27, 2010
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Developing this into a case study should include the example of Dave Carroll and United Airlines, see “Broken Guitar Has United Playing the Blues to the Tune of $180 Million ” by Ravi Sawhney dated July 28, 2009. “Companies have to be tapped in to social media to quickly right wrongs and head off bad press before it spins out of control. Carroll gave United every chance. When, after nine months of calls and emails, United finally shut the door on his communications, he wrote them one last time, telling them of his plan to write three songs, video them, and post them on YouTube.” http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ravi-sawhney/design-reach/youtube-serves-180-million-heartbreak Too bad Southwest Airlines didn’t pay attention. Or maybe they paid too much attention to real-time feeds and missed it.