Social Media to the Rescue

People across the nation fell in love with Jack, the long-haired tabby cat American Airlines lost at JFK International Airport on August 25. After two months of searching for the “fugitive” feline, he fell out of thin air… literally. 

After clearing security, owner Karen Pascoe received the news about her missing cat from an American Airlines employee. Apparently a worker stacked Pascoe’s two cat kennels on a cart, and when the top kennel fell over on the ground inside of the inbound baggage claim area, it opened and Jack escaped.

After not finding her pet during the initial search, Pascoe boarded her flight to San Francisco without her pet. The airline assured her they would find Jack, contact her within 24 hours and presumably return the cat to her how they would any other lost luggage.

Almost three days went by before the owner heard from “Andy” the baggage manager from the airline. There still was no sign of Jack. Andy also informed her, “the last time this happened, it took about a month to find the cat.”

Pascoe returned to JFK just a few days later to keep looking for her cat. She even hired a pet detective to help with the search, but there was still no sign of Jack.

During the two-month search, cat lovers bombarded the American Airlines Facebook page demanding the company do more to find the beloved pet they recklessly lost. The airline responded to the public by setting up a separate Facebook notes page to give updates and details about Jack’s status.

Pascoe’s sister, Mary Beth Griffith Melchior, created the “Jack the Cat is Lost in AA Baggage at JFK” Facebook page, which now has more than 20,000 followers.

Someone also created a Twitter handle in honor of the missing cat. Most of the tweets were goofy including this one: “This cat is not taking any of his nine lives for granted! Having fun at JFK until they find me.”

On October 22, the airline created Jack the Cat Awareness Day at JFK, in order to spread awareness about the missing cat.

Four days later, Jack crashed through a ceiling tile falling down into a customs room. The poor kitty was found hungry, weak and dehydrated. Airport workers immediately sent him to a nearby emergency animal clinic in Queens, where the veterinarian diagnosed him with fatty liver disease due to the lack of food nutrition. Since he lost five pounds he is being fed through a nasal tube and had surgery on a leg wound. The vet estimated him to be out of the clinic and on his way to California with his owner in the next week.

This story shows the strength of social media. Major news outlets including MSNBC and Fox, covered the story throughout the search for the missing cat. If an airline lost a cat ten years ago, this story would not have even made local news, but with thousands of people talking about this lost cat the news spread globally.

The power of social media helped save this cat since people and airport workers knew about the lost cat; they kept their eyes open for Jack and knew what to do if and when they found him.

Blackberry Blacks Out

Every week when I am researching current public relations news, I always tend to stumble across a new communications crisis. I find this interesting considering there are thousands of real examples to learn from; blogs about what to do or what not to do during a crisis; books about how to create and implement a crisis communications plan; and other numerous sources to help before, during and after these unfortunate situations.

Just in the past month there have been a handful of well-known companies that made huge communications mistakes including Netflix, Bank of America and the most recent failure, Blackberry.

Last week in Europe, BlackBerry services experienced an internal technical glitch causing an outage. The outage then spread to Africa, the Middle East and hit the U.S. three days after the initial glitch.

The Canadian-based company, Research in Motion (RIM), blamed the issue on a backlog of messages. According to The Wall Street Journal, it was a “failed switch and an inoperable backup.”

Four days after the initial outage, the service returned to normal for users around the globe.

RIM responded to this crisis by creating a link on their webpage that directed users straight to service updates and an apology video by the RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis. These updates might include apologies, but there were few details on when the glitches would be fixed. They also used technical jargon which means little or nothing to most people.  

The company used Twitter to update followers in different languages to reach their users around the world experiencing the outage. The issue with their tweets is that they were not timely about reaching out to customers when the glitch occurred on Monday. They also lied to users when they promised that the issue was fixed when it actually was not fixed.

For the second-quarter, BlackBerry  reported a 59 percent drop in profits and a year-over-year decline in product shipments. This outage was a major crisis for the company and they only helped damage their brand (and future) by adding horrible communications in the mix.

There are two main issues that stood out to me in this particular crisis, including the lack of being completely honest and timely.

In all of my public relations courses we learn about the most basic concept of PR ethics: always tell the truth. It’s simple. If you aren’t certain about a fact, then be honest that you’re unsure about it. Inform your audience that you will get back to them when you are 100 percent sure of the whole truth, but be timely with your response.

Blackberry stating that the issue was fixed when it actually took an extra three days angered consumers even more. I can’t say that users would have been thrilled to know that their phones would be down for that long in advance, but at least the company would have been honest in their communications.

Timing is also a major issue when dealing with a crisis. Blackberry did not get in contact with their users in a timely matter. If and when a crisis happens, a company should focus on the issue first to get through it in order to salvage their image.

Since Blackberry is a technologically savvy company that provides instant communications to customers globally, I find it interesting that their communications skills need some work.

Netflix Finally Listens to Customers

Netflix changed its mind and business plan again (which is the third major announcement in only four months) this week after receiving a horrible response by customers about all of the company’s upcoming changes.

Last month, the company announced splitting into two businesses including: Netflix, which would stream movies and TV shows online, and Qwikster, which would mail movies to customers.

The addition of Qwikster came across as a last minute, unorganized decision made by the company. I say this especially because of the Twitter handle issue. The company failed to research the use of the name Qwikster, which was a huge fail on their part.

@Qwikster on Twitter is an avid pot smoker, enjoys using unnecessary (misspelled) curse words, and wouldn’t know how to use correct grammar if it hit him in the face. If these reasons aren’t good enough, then check out some more of his tweets. You will see firsthand why you wouldn’t want him to be the face of a company.

A week after launching the new Qwikster DVD mailing business, Netflix canceled it. Instead of separating the two businesses, Netflix simply is keeping the two plans on one website, the Netflix website (which only makes sense). This basically means customers only need to have one account to use both services (which also only makes sense plus it’s more convenient).  

With raising prices and this mess of a new business plan, Netflix stock lost a whopping 63 percent of its value in the last three months. On top of this decrease, they are also expected to lose an estimated 600,000 subscribers out of 24.6 million by the end of this year.

Even though the number of canceling subscribers seems high, there are even higher hopes for the future of Netflix. With the new (and much improved) business plan focusing on online streaming, experts project the amount of subscribers to increase by about three times by 2017.

Even though they are expected to increase the amount of customers, right now Netflix needs to focus on their brand image that they single-handedly damaged. With the price increases and the change of business plans being poorly communicated to subscribers, their reputation will take time to repair.

They do have some great things going for them as a company, because they constantly try to make innovations in order to keep up with technology constantly changing. Plus, this is an excellent opportunity to shine now that they are in the limelight.

Netflix is quick on their feet (but quick to make hasty decisions apparently) so; they should definitely capitalize on the fact that they heard the negative feedback from consumers and immediately responded. The company took into consideration what subscribers were saying and apologized and changed their business to better fit the needs of the customers.

BoA Blatantly Steals Money from Customers

Bank of America (BoA), one of the largest national banks in the U.S., announced its new service charge for customers using debit cards for purchases. Starting next year, the $5 monthly fee will apply for purchases only, so at least it doesn’t include customer ATM withdrawals, online bill pay or mobile phone transfers. The new charge outraged customers across the country causing protests and petitions in several major cities. 

The bank responded to the angry customers with “[we are] adjusting our pricing to reflect today’s economics” and then blamed the federal government.

The New York Times calls the bank’s statements “simplistic” and a mere attempt to “obfuscate one of the largest illegal transfers of wealth from consumers to banks in American history.”

Vice President Joe Biden blasted Bank of America for imposing this new fee saying, “At a minimum, they are incredibly tone deaf.”

BoA blames the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. This new federal law limits the amount of “swipe fees” banks can charge retailers when customers make purchases using their cards. The bank claims it needs to charge customers to make up for lost revenue. The new cap is 24 cents for an average debit card transaction of $38, – which is about half of what the industry previously collected – and banks are expected to lose billions because of it.

This isn’t the first time BoA has added a new fee to their list this year. Back in February, the bank implemented a fee to checking account holders for receiving mailed copies of canceled checks along with their bank statements. If mailers are such an expensive issue, then why do I receive mailed credit card applications from all of the major banks on a weekly basis? Every member of my family receives these five-page applications (especially from Chase), but why waste time and money when it literally ends up in the trash?

The initial purpose of debit cards was to replace paper checks; in fact, banks actually save money when a customer pays with a card instead of a check. In the 1980s, Visa estimated savings to be between 55 cents to $1.60 per check, which has notably increased over the years.  I guess I just don’t understand why debit cards are costing them so much that they should charge for them.

Bank of America is one of the few national banks to change a monthly fee for debit card users. In February, Chase piloted a $5 fee for customers in Wisconsin, but it still hasn’t expanded to any other state.  Starting October 14, Wells Fargo starts testing a $3 monthly transaction fee in five different states.

If the Dodd-Frank reform law was significantly hurting individual banks, wouldn’t all of them issue additional fees? BoA jumped the gun on this one. They were already facing financial issues this year, and this new fee is definitely going to cost them even more. Customers are literally taking their money and running to the nearest bank that doesn’t charge customers to spend their own money.

I am thankful to be a USAA customer who doesn’t have to put up a fight or sign a petition to keep my money in my pocket versus the bank’s pocket. Thank you, USAA.