When Jet Blue’s Ship Came In, They Were At the Airport
By · CommentsWell, of course they were at the airport. They’re an airline.
My point is that by not responding quickly to the Steven Slater Beer-Slide incident, they’ve really missed the boat on kicking off a great conversation about and among an entire industry and its customers. The conversation is kicked off, and JetBlue is a major part of the story, but they screwed up a huge opportunity to manage a crisis well.
It took them TWO DAYS to formulate a response on their blog. In hiding behind the “we don’t comment on individuals” curtain, they missed a chance to become the Great & Powerful Oz of the air travel industry, at least in the customer-cabin-crew-connection-and-convo category.
What would I recommend to a company who finds themselves in the position that Jet Blue was in on Monday?
- Offer a comment along the lines of “today’s events are offering us an opportunity to start a conversation across our industry about customer service and workplace conditions. If you’d like to share your views with us, [blog/email/Facebook/Twitter] – we welcome the chance to explore how we can improve our relationships with our customers AND our employees.” That doesn’t assess or assume blame, but it says you’re paying attention.
- Monitor traffic, engage in conversations with heart but not an excess of passion (IOW, don’t pull a Slater).
- Monitor commentary about your brand, and the individual who set off the situation. Respond only to direct queries by pointing them at your crisis-comms traffic cops mentioned in Bullet 1.
Jet Blue wasn’t completely silent. Unfortunately, the cries and whispers of the guy who manages their corporate comms Twitter feed got into a Twit-fight with Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport). In a battle of wits with a comedian, Jet Blue’s guy is an unarmed combatant. And he forgot the 1st rule of crisis communications: don’t say anything that will make the crisis worse.
You could wind up Dipstick Du Jour on Gawker.
I hope both Jet Blue and Steven Slater find their way through, and past, this slide down the barbed-wire fence of corporate celebrity. I also hope that other individuals, and the companies who employ them, find better ways to manage workplace stress.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it…
Dear Google: It Ain’t a Free Trial If You Charge Me
By · CommentsI have been a Google brand advocate for over a decade. Fell on their search engine like a starving dog when it launched in beta in ’98 (even then, they really were better than everybody else), and have enthusiastically jumped in on all their web-based tools as they’ve rolled out.
Since I switched to an Android-powered phone recently, and am trying to find the right tools to sync my Outlook contacts (almost 2K) with both my Droid and Google Contacts – backups to the backups, always available – I decided to investigate Google Apps.
Their Premier (paid) Edition looked like it was worth a try. And they offer a 30-day free trial. Or at least they say they do.
I signed up for the free trial. They asked for my credit card number, and I gave it – I’ve taken advantage of many free trial offers the same way. I use it, if I like it, I stay and pay. If I don’t like it, I cancel during the trial period.
Has always been easy…until Google Apps.
I was concerned when I saw a charge appear on my credit card account online almost instantaneously after I signed up for the “free” trial. How is it free if you’re charging me for it?
I followed the “Support” thread in an attempt to find why they’d charged me. This is all I got:
In case you can’t make out the text at the bottom, it says that even though it looks like I was charged, I wasn’t.
I beg to differ. $50 that has been taken out of my account is $50 I don’t have access to – which sounds like “charging” to me.
I canceled the trial immediately.
The charge IS STILL ON MY ACCOUNT ALMOST 36 HOURS LATER. Trying to engage with Google as a customer gets you lots of bot-generated “do not reply to this” email, but no actual customer service.
I’m very much not the only person to have been bait-and-switched by Google Apps. BTW, Google Apps Power Poster LMckin51 is answering lots of questions (badly) on this topic, but doesn’t seem to understand the concept of listening. Since s/he is a volunteer, I’ll observe that Google seems to like getting stuff for free themselves. To be fair, they do offer lots of free tools – but bait-and-switch makes me madder than Dick Cheney at a PETA meeting.
Sorry, Google – you have officially become the giant soulless representation of crappy customer service. I realize that, to you, I don’t even qualify as a gnat to your elephant. However, there are more of me (small business owners) than there are of you (giant soulless global corporations).
And I call bait-and-switch – saying something is one thing (in this case, free) when it’s really something else (in this case, $50 plus possible overdraft fees) – the essence of evil in business.
Don’t be evil? Don’t make me laugh.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Are Afghan Papers the 21st Century’s Pentagon Papers?
By · CommentsDaily Beast’s lead story today reveals that the Justice Dept. and the Pentagon have expanded their investigation of Bradley Manning, the US Army analyst who handed over what I’m calling the Afghan Papers to Wikileaks.
As someone who is, um, experienced enough to remember the Pentagon Papers dust-up in 1967 when the war in Vietnam was ramping up, and the DoD and White House were – to call a spade a spade – flat-out lying to the American people about the US military expansion and operations in southeast Asia, I feel compelled to make this observation:
Democracy requires truth. Truth is the enemy of politics. Those forces will be forever set in opposition, which means that, from time to time, the blood – or freedom – of patriots must be sacrificed on the altar of that truth.
Nothing I have read about Manning gives me the impression that he was looking for any kind of recognition or compensation from leaking the Afghan Papers. According to his friends, this kid – and he is a kid, under 25 years old (Ellsberg was 35 when he leaked the Pentagon Papers) – was hugely conflicted about what he observed on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what he saw reported further up the chain.
As our adventure in the sand continues in Afghanistan and Iraq, in aid of a purpose that I don’t think anyone has a clear grasp on, I find myself thinking that Bradley Manning has more cojones – and courage – than anyone in the Pentagon.
One of his fellow soldiers, posting anonymously on Daily Beast, tellingly says that the Afghan campaign is called The Ocho (inspired by one of my favorite movies, Dodge Ball) by troops on the ground, and is thought to be an exercise in futility – whose futility is being hidden from Congress and the White House via smoke-and-mirrors PowerPoint presentations by DoD officials.
I’m calling bullshit on the whole military operation – not the boots on the ground, but the suits who sent ‘em there – and saluting Bradley Manning for taking the risk he did. He’s likely sacrificed his freedom (he’s currently in the brig in Kuwait) for at least a decade to put some truth on the table.
Now it’s time for us – Americans all – to take a hard look at what’s on that table. And make some decisions about how we can drive some meaningful action, and change.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Health 2.0: the WellCentrix Philosophy
By · CommentsHere’s a short webinar on the WellCentrix theory of healthcare IT and Health 2.0
A hip or knee replacement can offer people with chronic joint pain the chance to return to an active life. The potential promise of being pain-free, in some cases after decades of restricted movement, is a powerful incentive to arthritis sufferers around the world.
I know from direct observation that not all joint replacements result in the patient returning to the dance floor, or the jogging track, or even the walking path. My dad had a hip replacement in 1996 that inserted the wrong appliance, leading to 18 dislocations in the ensuing three years. The issue was finally resolved with yet another surgery, paid for by Medicare and my father’s supplemental insurance. This was a doctor error, not an appliance failure.
Imagine my surprise this past Saturday (April 3, 2010) at this piece in the New York Times, revealing that almost all manufacturers of artificial joints offer no warranty whatsoever to US consumers who wind up with defective products surgically strapped on to their skeletal structure. The dodge is facilitated by the way device manufacturers sell the implants: to the hospital, not to the patient.
The skids on that dodge are further greased by the consulting fees paid to many surgeons by implant makers, giving those surgeons little impetus to bite the hand that feeds them.
Here’s a chart for the visual learners:
US device manufacturers who sell artificial joints overseas offer warranties in the countries outside the US where their implants are used. Why not here? One reason could be our tort-crazy system. Got a consumer complaint? Don’t try to work it out directly – hire a lawyer and sue the bastards.
That does not, however, excuse the failure of medical device makers to offer any kind of warranty on their products. And it’s not excuse for their expectation that we – taxpayers (Medicare and Medicaid), insurers, and patients – foot the bill for their lousy manufacturing processes.
This is another example of why we need what I call “real health care reform” in the US: fully-informed consumers (patients) communicating fully and frankly with health care providers (doctors, hospitals, device manufacturers). Price and outcome disclosures at the outset of every interaction. Both sides held to account on compliance with best practices.
Wow – what a revolution that would be.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Got comments? Brickbats? Kudos? I welcome all. Bring it on.
The (Real) Story on “Mad Men”
By MightyMouth · Comments (0)First, let me make this clear: I’m a big fan of the Emmy-winning AMC series Mad Men.
That said, I go through a veritable buffet of reactions during each episode – fear, loathing, fear AND loathing, and occasionally PTSD. The PTSD and the fear/loathing are inextricably intertwined, due to the fact that I started my sojourn in the workforce in the mid-70s, when the captains of industry exemplified by Sterling, Cooper, Draper, and the rest of the boyz were running the show.
On Madison Ave., Main St., and everywhere else.
Being an XX in an XY world – the ’70s – meant dealing with behavior exactly like what was on display in last Sunday’s episode of Mad Men. All my bosses back in the day presumed that I was in the workforce to land a husband. And they assumed that my presence in their world meant that I was a perfect candidate for Bedroom Romper Room as pre-marital training.
I was still in college, working a part-time job, when a boss cornered me in the supply shelves and told me to put out, or get fired. Had he been less Aldo Ray and more Henry Fonda, I might have gone for it. He wasn’t. I was fired, and overjoyed about it.
The early days of the sexual revolution essentially amounted to guys assuming they had a right to hear “yes”, but grrlz had no right to say “no”. Starting in the late ’60s, and going up to – and through – the Age of AIDS, it was a never ending grope-fest. Seriously.
I was working in an ad sales division of a major broadcasting network by the late ’70s, serving a sentence as a secretary in exchange for NYU Film School tuition. (A rockingly fair deal.) The sentence-serving piece came from most of the guys in the office, who clearly believed that we office grrlz were there for their amusement, delectation…and occasional dictation.
I thought about that as Don groped Allison, his secretary, on Sunday night. I found myself wondering when Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex & The Single Girl came out – 1962, so I was right to hear an echo.
This past Sunday’s dark Christmas party Mad Men took me back to the Christmas party the network sales division threw in ’79, where I was forcefully propositioned by no fewer than 7 execs, all married, all drunk, all entitled. I managed to evade their desired result, but still felt like Allison did when Don handed her two crisp $50 bills – a whore.
I was putting up with bad behavior in exchange for a paycheck. Not a lot of alternatives at the time, more now but still not utopia.
I watch Mad Men with a strong sense of history, and that PTSD I mentioned before. Joan, Peggy, and Sally are the most interesting characters in the show, as far as I’m concerned. I worry about all of them, because I know what marriage for the sake of marriage does, what it feels like to sacrifice a personal life to a career, and how childhood hurts can morph into very bizarre behavior.
I’ll keep watching. And I’ll keep worrying. And I’ll hope that Joan becomes an account exec, that Peggy starts her own agency, and that Sally grows past her dark side…
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it…