Yesterday, a video of a man dragged from an overbooked United flight because he wouldn’t give up his seat went viral. Public reaction to the incident and United’s subsequent fumbling of the aftermath has resulted in UAL’s stock falling several percentage points this morning:
The stock has rebounded slightly this afternoon and will probably fully recover within the next few weeks.
Also yesterday, a man walked into a San Bernardino elementary school and killed a teacher (his estranged wife) and an 8-year-old boy before shooting himself. The story has received very light national coverage, particularly in comparison to the United story. In response, the stock prices of gun companies were up a few percent this morning (top: American Outdoor Brands Corp which owns Smith & Wesson; bottom: Sturm, Ruger & Company):
This follows a familiar pattern of gun stock prices rising after shootings; Smith & Wesson’s stock price rose almost 9% after the mass shooting in Orlando last year.
Update: It took about three and a half weeks, but on May 2, United’s stock had regained all of the value “lost” due to the incident and subsequent PR blunders. As of this writing (May 3 at 12:41 PM ET), UAL is actually up about 3.5% from the closing price before the incident.
Here’s how you do it well, courtesy of Zappos (of course). Yesterday I tweeted:
I think my wife is having an affair with someone named “Zappos”. He sends her a package at least every third day. I am on to you, Mr Zappos!
Almost immediately, Zappos’ customer service Twitter account replied:
@jkottke I’m sorry sir, but our relationship with your wife is strictly professional.
Great, right? A company that gets the joke and participates meaningfully in an actual conversation with a full awareness of the context.
Here’s how not to do it, courtesy of United Airlines. Mena Trott, a co-founder of Six Apart, had her flight to NYC randomly cancelled on Monday night by “a robot”. (They actually blamed it on a robot!) In a series of three tweets, Mena voiced her displeasure:
Thanks @unitedairlines for randomly canceling my miles booked ticket for tonight, taking the miles & not letting me rebook for lack of miles
And then hanging up on me after I waited for an hour! I hate you @unitedairlines
Apparently the automated voice recognition system can’t tell what I’m saying through my tears @unitedairlines #IhateYouSoMuch
Reply from @unitedairlines? Nothing. But then while on her rebooked flight the next morning, Mena tweets sarcastically:
Thanks to @unitedairlines I can finally watch that Frasier episode I missed in 1994.
And unbelievably, @unitedairlines replied, pouring burning acid into Mena’s obviously still-tender wound:
@dollarshort “…I hear the blues a-callin’, Tossed salad and scrambled eggs..”
That is some serious customer service tone deafness right there. It would be easy to blame whatever social media jockey they’ve got manning the Twitter account for the faux pas, but obviously United customer communication problems run deeper (and originate higher up the pay scale) than that.
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