hello friends welcome back to case
studies with the biz doc this week the
subjects going to be United Airlines and
I’m going to take you to a little case
study on crisis communications what to
do on a bright sunny day when your
business minding its own business doing
what you’ve always done find yourself
embroiled in a crisis there’s a right
way and there’s a wrong way and we’re
going to cover it this week now we all
know what happened with untied airlines
yes I call it untied airlines because
that poor guy dr. Dow certainly feels
tied up and he feels like he’s flying
the unfriendly skies you know what I
thought was funny this week is all the
means everything that was coming out you
look at their logo is that the death
star or is it a cage well guess what
both work
sorry visit uh we’re filming you’ve been
what’s going on you’ve been bummed
wait what yep we we’ve got to get
another host in here I’ve been bumped
you’ve been bum who above me we got
another show coming in Kelly Nishimoto
we got used to what wait Kelly Nishimoto
why you can’t pump me sorry sorry biz
doc I know go go away I’m not doing it
you go back no how are you $40 no I’m
not doing this doc $40 give me $40 to
bump me as the host no I was here doing
look I’m here like him no hey hey hey
Oh Oh I’m back what an ordeal getting
bumped on my own show and he only
offered me 40 bucks man you see those
videos about that guy that got bumped
from the United flight and you think
what they were doing one word comes to
that damn man
what a terrible ordeal anyway uh where
was I
ah let’s take a look at what happened to
United and what they were doing on a
bright sunny morning operating business
as usual
now first they’re an airline and you
know we’re all kind of fed up with their
lines airlines credit card companies
cable TV none of those have particularly
high marks at the American people and
certainly or people around the world and
certainly airlines have a reputation
that they deserve to have there are some
bright spots virgin air tries real hard
Southwest has always tried hard to have
a heart and do things but some of the
big carriers and as a result of all
these mergers they deserve the
reputation but they also sometimes have
a tough job and things are happening
that are not their fault well in the
case of United the CEO Oscar muñoz he’s
generally regarded as being a pretty
good CEO and a pretty nice guy but we
can see this week you really fumbled we
all saw what happened but I’ll just
repeat the key facts there’s this United
flight operated by Republic Airlines
which is a partner of United that was
that was headed to Louisville and it’s
heading to Louisville and it’s
completely full it wasn’t over booked
meaning people standing around couldn’t
get seats even though they bought a
ticket on that but it was full the
problem was United needed pilots in
Louisville and they needed a crew of
four so they had the terrible choice had
to be made of getting four customers off
that flight so they could get four of
their employees on because they had 200
people waiting in Louisville with a
flight that didn’t have a crew now I’ll
get to what all that means in a minute
so they announced hey $1,000 travel
voucher to for people to take a later
flight to Louisville
we have a situation here well three
people took it now college students love
that and I’ll talk about that in a
minute because it usually means hey on
my way home I got delayed a little bit
but I got a thousand bucks to go with my
girlfriend or boyfriend on trip to
Spring Break now we’ve got this extra
travel money and yeah sometimes it works
out but in this case you know I don’t
know who exactly took it but three
people said you know what I’ll fly later
I’ll take the thousand then it’s getting
closer to takeoff and there is nobody
else
well the airlines look down a list made
some sort of decision and they said
let’s go talk to this guy his name is
dr. Dow so they go in and talk to doctor
down so excuse me sir you’re being
bumped from this flight but we’re going
to give you $1,000 travel voucher for
the next flight and dr. Dow says what a
lot of people say oh no thanks is it no
sir you’ve been selected and you’re
going to be removed from the flight and
what happened next was he became
agitated they called airport security
and the airport security we all saw the
videos dragged him down the aisle now
there are some things that dr. Dow
didn’t do perfectly right in the
situation and he was running back and
forth there’s some other things that
went on but no customer just for being
disagreeable deserves to be dragged down
an aisle by security like there’s some
sort of riot protest and the police are
dragging you away to jail for disorderly
conduct he was sitting on a flight on
with a ticket he had bought waiting to
go wherever well that’s what happened
and then the days that followed United
they blew it on crisis communication
they sent an email from their CEO that
said it was a belligerent passenger oh
great so now the guy’s being dragged
down the aisle who a minute ago was
sitting there just waiting to go to his
next city now he’s being called
belligerent and an email throughout
United by the CEO the CEO never should
have wrote that so let’s talk real quick
about travel I’ve traveled a lot and
I’ve had executive platinum status on
American airline
I was almost diamond status on Delta but
based on business
Travel and where I lived in what I did
for many years and so I traveled a lot
and I’ve seen it and I’ll tell you
things happen to Airlines first let’s
take a look at the whole concept of
bumping downs with other day sometimes
airlines if you don’t travel a lot maybe
you don’t know this they end up in a
pinch so let’s say a flight going to
Louisville had a flight crew that’s
supposed to get on the next plane and
take these people to somewhere else
what if weather or equipment this plane
is delayed
well Louisville is not like a
headquarters or a hub city for United
United it’s got one in San Francisco one
in Chicago but Louisville is a small
airport they may not have any off-duty
flight attendants or pilots they could
call in hey you need to get to work they
could do that in San Francisco they
could do that in Chicago where they got
all these employees not in Louisville so
now they don’t have people there a
flight that was coming in and that crew
is going to go the next plane is not
there you could also have situations
where you may have a crew that’s just
arrived but they have flown their
maximum number of hours for the day and
to keep you and me safe there are
regulations about how many hours a pilot
can fly in a day and how many hours a
flight crew can work and we don’t want
flight crews working 12 13 hour days and
flying that long if they’re supposed to
be safely getting us to our destination
so in those cases those crews can’t get
on the next flight so they had a
situation we got to get a crew of four
to Louisville and we need to
inconvenience for customers but let’s
give them a thousand dollar voucher and
that happens a lot you hear
announcements all the time this flight
is oversold or hey we need to get crew
to the next city because there’s a bunch
of people sitting on a plane so the
inconvenience for people give them
travel vouchers so that they can get 200
people in Louisville waiting for their
flight to where they’re going to go so
if you’re the airline you run into these
things all the time and you balance it I
got to inconvenience a few people who
may be pissed but I got to see if I can
fix it for these 200 people so that’s a
situation they’re in in that
happens from time to time and you know
you hear about overbooking well
overbooking i flew a lot and it wasn’t
as a as often as people want to say it
is because over the course of time the
airlines have tremendous databases of
how many people know show and so
therefore they say well we usually have
a no-show of three percent so we can
over booked three percent or some math
that they do and generally they get it
right and I haven’t been frequent that I
see over booking and when you hear over
booking you think that it’s always
always bad well a lot of times the
airlines have detailed statistics on
what has happened now in this case
apparently the flight was just full
exactly full and there was no over
booking but nonetheless Republican
United had to work together to get the
crew the next city and then three people
took the vouchers and then dr. Dow got
dragged down the aisle by security
horrible situation but that’s what it is
so not cutting United any slack but
generally airlines have a pretty tough
job when whether or an equipment issue
or the flight crews out of hours and
when they’re trying to mix it around so
they can get you and neither destination
they have a tough job but that does not
excuse what untied airlines fly the
unfriendly skies did this time here is a
case study on crisis communications and
we can set United Airlines aside now and
talk about crisis communications and how
to do it right things can happen you or
me could be operating our business and
on a bright sunny morning crisis happens
and it’s not even our fault but here’s
how you handle it number one the
impacted people come first there’s
social media there’s facebook there’s
news all these people are going to be
checking on you and they’re going to be
watching you and the first thing the
impacted people come first I’ll use
United as an example but I’m not going
to talk about you know their situation
anymore but if I had been the CEO the
first thing
would have done is hey we all saw the
videos this is a terrible situation the
first thing that I want to find out is
what happened to that our customer who
bought that ticket for us dr. Dow how is
he doing where is he and what’s going on
and I’m checking on that first I’ve
instructed people on my organization to
do that and second I’m calling every
person every flight attendant pilot or
person it was on duty I don’t want to
talk to management I don’t want to talk
about layers above I want to have a
conference call and hear from all my
people please give me time to get the
full and complete story from my
employees who I trust who are the
witnesses there that’s called get the
story straight tell the media you’re on
a path to get the story straight but
quickly and upfront you got to get some
statement out even if it’s one media
outlet you got to get it out that we’re
worried about the impacted person
regardless of whether it’s your fault or
not tell them you’re worried about the
impacted person and you want to get the
story straight then interview your
people
and when I say interview I mean
interview them if you’re a leader in
your company you need to ask the
following questions who was there I want
to hear from you and if on this phone
call you have felt in any way that you
are being intimidated or pushed to
change your story or not tell the exact
truth here’s my private email and if you
want to send me an email tonight from
your personal email because you’re
scared or being intimidated right now do
it I need the truth from everybody
involved we just need to know what
happened we’re going to learn together
we’re going to grow together but I want
to know what happened who are you I’m
the lead flight attendant what happened
who are you why was the pilot up front
while they’re making announcement who
are you
I was the gate attendant that was making
announcements for the thousand dollar
voucher find out from everybody
interview the whole crew that’s how you
get the story straight and then you
become transparent and available now you
can go out with your story in this case
and say hey we had been first worried
about dr. Dow and I talked to my people
and I had the following statement first
of all this flight was an overbooked it
was just
full second of all we were following
procedures just trying to get four
people to take a later flight so we
could get our flight crew to Louisville
so 200 people also our customers
wouldn’t be stranded we could get a
flight crew there so they could fly
that’s the problem I have and yeah we
can all talk about how that happened
what we could do different but that was
our situation that day and then we
attempted to talk to dr. Dow we went
through a list of people based on
frequent flyer status and things like
that we attempted to talk to him and you
know what things broke down he got upset
with us he didn’t want to be
inconvenience we understand that but we
think he got a little more upset than he
should and then we got security involved
you know what I don’t think we should
have gotten security involved and I feel
terrible about it especially if they’re
going to be dragging him off I would
have rather you know gone up to 1,500
travel voucher and gone to the next
person and see if we could do it so we
can all talk about how it could be
different but ladies and gentlemen this
is what I understand happened it wasn’t
overbooked it was just full they were
following procedures and at some point
this thing broke down and we you know
own it now you don’t have to own and
take accountability for dr. Dow you know
how he acted and was freaked out and was
running around and things you don’t have
to own his behavior but you have to own
that he’s your customer that it’s your
flight
those are your people and somebody
called security you don’t have to own
accountability for security but they
were called then despite it all you take
it so despite the fact that maybe dr.
Dow is a little over the top you don’t
sit there and blame him or blame any
situation you own it despite it all and
finally you commit to a solution and you
say now first making sure dr. Dow is
okay and making sure I got the story
straight and I’ve shared it with you the
media I and we own it was on our plane
those weren’t our security but that was
our customer our situation we have to
own that and lastly I think as an
industry we could look at better ways to
move cruise around and week
grow with the future we have so much
technology and analytics I think as an
industry we need to commit to a solution
to have better preparation for backup
flight crews and there’s things we can
learn from it and as a CEO in the
industry I need to be part of that now
watch what happens if that was the way
it transpired guess what the media is
like well hey they’re really owning it
they’re trying to find the solution they
tried to do something to help dr. Dow
and the CEO is being transparent and he
said he was allowed to get the story
straight from the people that were there
this is the trust line when a crisis
happens like the yellow line trust drops
as the public goes suspicions did you
see that video that poor United customer
got his ass dragged off an airplane oh
my gosh that’s terrible and it drops but
trust can come back as the whole story
comes out and you have a CEO not
changing the story
however as Trust drops and then they
change the story away they wait it was
overbooked no no no wasn’t overbooked
and all those things happen and then an
email inside United calling him a
belligerent customer all of a sudden you
end up on a path to hell what started
out as a crisis that you had an
opportunity to recover from maybe even
commit to a solution and offer it to
your industry you end up on that path to
hell because you have now blown it in so
many different ways
your CEO looks like a guy who treats
customers as enemy your CEO suddenly
looks like a guy who didn’t have this
back straight and the story kept
unfolding and finally you lose it but in
this situation the public’s going to you
know those videos are harsh and what
happened that man was terrible so you’re
going to have suspicions loss of trust
but it can come back if this is the way
you handle it and say on a bright sunny
morning we were operating an airline and
then this terrible thing happened to dr.
Dow I hope we’ve all learned from it and
to go forward and even today dr. Dallas
got attorneys representing him but we’re
talking to them because we’re trying to
figure out how we can work with them he
went through a terrible situation
and it sucked for all of us but at the
end of the day I think is an industry we
could do some things and I’m going to be
part of that now then would you want to
fly that airline especially if nothing
else comes out no emails nothing to lose
trust I would and I would say you know
what I admire that guy had a terrible
situation and finally at the end saying
and who are those security goons anyway
as the truth comes out
public perception will move to the
people that were really at fault well
those securities were goons but the
doctor was also acting weird
but United good god man figure out how
to not have to bump people you can get
your flight crew around guess what
that’s when trust comes back because the
public will balance an opinion and
that’s what it’s all about so I hope
with the Untied Airlines and dr. Dowell
wants to be untied because Security’s
probably get on someplace in handcuffs
and the unfriendly skies I think I was
able to bridge this to a crisis
communications story and you know what I
would take notes and keep this in your
desk because someday you may need it and
this is the way to do it there’s a lot
written about crisis communication
there’s a lot of methods but I’ve always
felt that in an age of social media
where if it’s on video it becomes public
perception and that perception is truth
and you have to deal with that and
second Trust is rebuilt with
transparency and consistency because
it’s a video world it’s a snapchat world
it’s a Facebook world bits and pieces
are out there and you can’t spin those
so there you go that’s the case study
for this week I hope you learned about
crisis communication and oh hey we got a
genuine United Airlines pillow this week
that smells like baby vomit anyway
please subscribe the value tainment the
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patrick bet david until next time i’m
tom and i hope i left you better than i
found you
you [Music]
studies with the biz doc this week the
subjects going to be United Airlines and
I’m going to take you to a little case
study on crisis communications what to
do on a bright sunny day when your
business minding its own business doing
what you’ve always done find yourself
embroiled in a crisis there’s a right
way and there’s a wrong way and we’re
going to cover it this week now we all
know what happened with untied airlines
yes I call it untied airlines because
that poor guy dr. Dow certainly feels
tied up and he feels like he’s flying
the unfriendly skies you know what I
thought was funny this week is all the
means everything that was coming out you
look at their logo is that the death
star or is it a cage well guess what
both work
sorry visit uh we’re filming you’ve been
what’s going on you’ve been bummed
wait what yep we we’ve got to get
another host in here I’ve been bumped
you’ve been bum who above me we got
another show coming in Kelly Nishimoto
we got used to what wait Kelly Nishimoto
why you can’t pump me sorry sorry biz
doc I know go go away I’m not doing it
you go back no how are you $40 no I’m
not doing this doc $40 give me $40 to
bump me as the host no I was here doing
look I’m here like him no hey hey hey
Oh Oh I’m back what an ordeal getting
bumped on my own show and he only
offered me 40 bucks man you see those
videos about that guy that got bumped
from the United flight and you think
what they were doing one word comes to
that damn man
what a terrible ordeal anyway uh where
was I
ah let’s take a look at what happened to
United and what they were doing on a
bright sunny morning operating business
as usual
now first they’re an airline and you
know we’re all kind of fed up with their
lines airlines credit card companies
cable TV none of those have particularly
high marks at the American people and
certainly or people around the world and
certainly airlines have a reputation
that they deserve to have there are some
bright spots virgin air tries real hard
Southwest has always tried hard to have
a heart and do things but some of the
big carriers and as a result of all
these mergers they deserve the
reputation but they also sometimes have
a tough job and things are happening
that are not their fault well in the
case of United the CEO Oscar muñoz he’s
generally regarded as being a pretty
good CEO and a pretty nice guy but we
can see this week you really fumbled we
all saw what happened but I’ll just
repeat the key facts there’s this United
flight operated by Republic Airlines
which is a partner of United that was
that was headed to Louisville and it’s
heading to Louisville and it’s
completely full it wasn’t over booked
meaning people standing around couldn’t
get seats even though they bought a
ticket on that but it was full the
problem was United needed pilots in
Louisville and they needed a crew of
four so they had the terrible choice had
to be made of getting four customers off
that flight so they could get four of
their employees on because they had 200
people waiting in Louisville with a
flight that didn’t have a crew now I’ll
get to what all that means in a minute
so they announced hey $1,000 travel
voucher to for people to take a later
flight to Louisville
we have a situation here well three
people took it now college students love
that and I’ll talk about that in a
minute because it usually means hey on
my way home I got delayed a little bit
but I got a thousand bucks to go with my
girlfriend or boyfriend on trip to
Spring Break now we’ve got this extra
travel money and yeah sometimes it works
out but in this case you know I don’t
know who exactly took it but three
people said you know what I’ll fly later
I’ll take the thousand then it’s getting
closer to takeoff and there is nobody
else
well the airlines look down a list made
some sort of decision and they said
let’s go talk to this guy his name is
dr. Dow so they go in and talk to doctor
down so excuse me sir you’re being
bumped from this flight but we’re going
to give you $1,000 travel voucher for
the next flight and dr. Dow says what a
lot of people say oh no thanks is it no
sir you’ve been selected and you’re
going to be removed from the flight and
what happened next was he became
agitated they called airport security
and the airport security we all saw the
videos dragged him down the aisle now
there are some things that dr. Dow
didn’t do perfectly right in the
situation and he was running back and
forth there’s some other things that
went on but no customer just for being
disagreeable deserves to be dragged down
an aisle by security like there’s some
sort of riot protest and the police are
dragging you away to jail for disorderly
conduct he was sitting on a flight on
with a ticket he had bought waiting to
go wherever well that’s what happened
and then the days that followed United
they blew it on crisis communication
they sent an email from their CEO that
said it was a belligerent passenger oh
great so now the guy’s being dragged
down the aisle who a minute ago was
sitting there just waiting to go to his
next city now he’s being called
belligerent and an email throughout
United by the CEO the CEO never should
have wrote that so let’s talk real quick
about travel I’ve traveled a lot and
I’ve had executive platinum status on
American airline
I was almost diamond status on Delta but
based on business
Travel and where I lived in what I did
for many years and so I traveled a lot
and I’ve seen it and I’ll tell you
things happen to Airlines first let’s
take a look at the whole concept of
bumping downs with other day sometimes
airlines if you don’t travel a lot maybe
you don’t know this they end up in a
pinch so let’s say a flight going to
Louisville had a flight crew that’s
supposed to get on the next plane and
take these people to somewhere else
what if weather or equipment this plane
is delayed
well Louisville is not like a
headquarters or a hub city for United
United it’s got one in San Francisco one
in Chicago but Louisville is a small
airport they may not have any off-duty
flight attendants or pilots they could
call in hey you need to get to work they
could do that in San Francisco they
could do that in Chicago where they got
all these employees not in Louisville so
now they don’t have people there a
flight that was coming in and that crew
is going to go the next plane is not
there you could also have situations
where you may have a crew that’s just
arrived but they have flown their
maximum number of hours for the day and
to keep you and me safe there are
regulations about how many hours a pilot
can fly in a day and how many hours a
flight crew can work and we don’t want
flight crews working 12 13 hour days and
flying that long if they’re supposed to
be safely getting us to our destination
so in those cases those crews can’t get
on the next flight so they had a
situation we got to get a crew of four
to Louisville and we need to
inconvenience for customers but let’s
give them a thousand dollar voucher and
that happens a lot you hear
announcements all the time this flight
is oversold or hey we need to get crew
to the next city because there’s a bunch
of people sitting on a plane so the
inconvenience for people give them
travel vouchers so that they can get 200
people in Louisville waiting for their
flight to where they’re going to go so
if you’re the airline you run into these
things all the time and you balance it I
got to inconvenience a few people who
may be pissed but I got to see if I can
fix it for these 200 people so that’s a
situation they’re in in that
happens from time to time and you know
you hear about overbooking well
overbooking i flew a lot and it wasn’t
as a as often as people want to say it
is because over the course of time the
airlines have tremendous databases of
how many people know show and so
therefore they say well we usually have
a no-show of three percent so we can
over booked three percent or some math
that they do and generally they get it
right and I haven’t been frequent that I
see over booking and when you hear over
booking you think that it’s always
always bad well a lot of times the
airlines have detailed statistics on
what has happened now in this case
apparently the flight was just full
exactly full and there was no over
booking but nonetheless Republican
United had to work together to get the
crew the next city and then three people
took the vouchers and then dr. Dow got
dragged down the aisle by security
horrible situation but that’s what it is
so not cutting United any slack but
generally airlines have a pretty tough
job when whether or an equipment issue
or the flight crews out of hours and
when they’re trying to mix it around so
they can get you and neither destination
they have a tough job but that does not
excuse what untied airlines fly the
unfriendly skies did this time here is a
case study on crisis communications and
we can set United Airlines aside now and
talk about crisis communications and how
to do it right things can happen you or
me could be operating our business and
on a bright sunny morning crisis happens
and it’s not even our fault but here’s
how you handle it number one the
impacted people come first there’s
social media there’s facebook there’s
news all these people are going to be
checking on you and they’re going to be
watching you and the first thing the
impacted people come first I’ll use
United as an example but I’m not going
to talk about you know their situation
anymore but if I had been the CEO the
first thing
would have done is hey we all saw the
videos this is a terrible situation the
first thing that I want to find out is
what happened to that our customer who
bought that ticket for us dr. Dow how is
he doing where is he and what’s going on
and I’m checking on that first I’ve
instructed people on my organization to
do that and second I’m calling every
person every flight attendant pilot or
person it was on duty I don’t want to
talk to management I don’t want to talk
about layers above I want to have a
conference call and hear from all my
people please give me time to get the
full and complete story from my
employees who I trust who are the
witnesses there that’s called get the
story straight tell the media you’re on
a path to get the story straight but
quickly and upfront you got to get some
statement out even if it’s one media
outlet you got to get it out that we’re
worried about the impacted person
regardless of whether it’s your fault or
not tell them you’re worried about the
impacted person and you want to get the
story straight then interview your
people
and when I say interview I mean
interview them if you’re a leader in
your company you need to ask the
following questions who was there I want
to hear from you and if on this phone
call you have felt in any way that you
are being intimidated or pushed to
change your story or not tell the exact
truth here’s my private email and if you
want to send me an email tonight from
your personal email because you’re
scared or being intimidated right now do
it I need the truth from everybody
involved we just need to know what
happened we’re going to learn together
we’re going to grow together but I want
to know what happened who are you I’m
the lead flight attendant what happened
who are you why was the pilot up front
while they’re making announcement who
are you
I was the gate attendant that was making
announcements for the thousand dollar
voucher find out from everybody
interview the whole crew that’s how you
get the story straight and then you
become transparent and available now you
can go out with your story in this case
and say hey we had been first worried
about dr. Dow and I talked to my people
and I had the following statement first
of all this flight was an overbooked it
was just
full second of all we were following
procedures just trying to get four
people to take a later flight so we
could get our flight crew to Louisville
so 200 people also our customers
wouldn’t be stranded we could get a
flight crew there so they could fly
that’s the problem I have and yeah we
can all talk about how that happened
what we could do different but that was
our situation that day and then we
attempted to talk to dr. Dow we went
through a list of people based on
frequent flyer status and things like
that we attempted to talk to him and you
know what things broke down he got upset
with us he didn’t want to be
inconvenience we understand that but we
think he got a little more upset than he
should and then we got security involved
you know what I don’t think we should
have gotten security involved and I feel
terrible about it especially if they’re
going to be dragging him off I would
have rather you know gone up to 1,500
travel voucher and gone to the next
person and see if we could do it so we
can all talk about how it could be
different but ladies and gentlemen this
is what I understand happened it wasn’t
overbooked it was just full they were
following procedures and at some point
this thing broke down and we you know
own it now you don’t have to own and
take accountability for dr. Dow you know
how he acted and was freaked out and was
running around and things you don’t have
to own his behavior but you have to own
that he’s your customer that it’s your
flight
those are your people and somebody
called security you don’t have to own
accountability for security but they
were called then despite it all you take
it so despite the fact that maybe dr.
Dow is a little over the top you don’t
sit there and blame him or blame any
situation you own it despite it all and
finally you commit to a solution and you
say now first making sure dr. Dow is
okay and making sure I got the story
straight and I’ve shared it with you the
media I and we own it was on our plane
those weren’t our security but that was
our customer our situation we have to
own that and lastly I think as an
industry we could look at better ways to
move cruise around and week
grow with the future we have so much
technology and analytics I think as an
industry we need to commit to a solution
to have better preparation for backup
flight crews and there’s things we can
learn from it and as a CEO in the
industry I need to be part of that now
watch what happens if that was the way
it transpired guess what the media is
like well hey they’re really owning it
they’re trying to find the solution they
tried to do something to help dr. Dow
and the CEO is being transparent and he
said he was allowed to get the story
straight from the people that were there
this is the trust line when a crisis
happens like the yellow line trust drops
as the public goes suspicions did you
see that video that poor United customer
got his ass dragged off an airplane oh
my gosh that’s terrible and it drops but
trust can come back as the whole story
comes out and you have a CEO not
changing the story
however as Trust drops and then they
change the story away they wait it was
overbooked no no no wasn’t overbooked
and all those things happen and then an
email inside United calling him a
belligerent customer all of a sudden you
end up on a path to hell what started
out as a crisis that you had an
opportunity to recover from maybe even
commit to a solution and offer it to
your industry you end up on that path to
hell because you have now blown it in so
many different ways
your CEO looks like a guy who treats
customers as enemy your CEO suddenly
looks like a guy who didn’t have this
back straight and the story kept
unfolding and finally you lose it but in
this situation the public’s going to you
know those videos are harsh and what
happened that man was terrible so you’re
going to have suspicions loss of trust
but it can come back if this is the way
you handle it and say on a bright sunny
morning we were operating an airline and
then this terrible thing happened to dr.
Dow I hope we’ve all learned from it and
to go forward and even today dr. Dallas
got attorneys representing him but we’re
talking to them because we’re trying to
figure out how we can work with them he
went through a terrible situation
and it sucked for all of us but at the
end of the day I think is an industry we
could do some things and I’m going to be
part of that now then would you want to
fly that airline especially if nothing
else comes out no emails nothing to lose
trust I would and I would say you know
what I admire that guy had a terrible
situation and finally at the end saying
and who are those security goons anyway
as the truth comes out
public perception will move to the
people that were really at fault well
those securities were goons but the
doctor was also acting weird
but United good god man figure out how
to not have to bump people you can get
your flight crew around guess what
that’s when trust comes back because the
public will balance an opinion and
that’s what it’s all about so I hope
with the Untied Airlines and dr. Dowell
wants to be untied because Security’s
probably get on someplace in handcuffs
and the unfriendly skies I think I was
able to bridge this to a crisis
communications story and you know what I
would take notes and keep this in your
desk because someday you may need it and
this is the way to do it there’s a lot
written about crisis communication
there’s a lot of methods but I’ve always
felt that in an age of social media
where if it’s on video it becomes public
perception and that perception is truth
and you have to deal with that and
second Trust is rebuilt with
transparency and consistency because
it’s a video world it’s a snapchat world
it’s a Facebook world bits and pieces
are out there and you can’t spin those
so there you go that’s the case study
for this week I hope you learned about
crisis communication and oh hey we got a
genuine United Airlines pillow this week
that smells like baby vomit anyway
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patrick bet david until next time i’m
tom and i hope i left you better than i
found you
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