Power to the Twitter people

Back when I was in high school I’d bought a camera at a local photo store. It constantly broke, yet they refused to give me a new one. Both me and the shop knew that I was by law entitled to one (as I had gone down there with a book of Norwegian law, and read them the relevant paragraphs), but it wasn’t until my mum went down and threatened to contact the local paper, or the Norwegian version of “Watchdog”, that they gave in.

Everyone involved knew that there was a very slim chance my broken camera-story was spicy enough to be picked up by any media we might contact, but I suppose they still didn’t want to risk it.

I fear the art of writing a strongly
worded letter is a dying skill.

Back in those days, before Facebook, Twitter and well, internet for most of us, newspapers, TV consumer shows, or the government consumer council were the only way to create a reputation crisis for a company that had treated us badly.

These days, it’s a brave new world for consumers, a world with a lot more consumer power.  Instead of taking time to write a strongly worded letter, or wait for an hour on the phone to get through to customer service, the internet will in many cases provide you with a much swifter reply.

If you have the slightest celebrity status, you can create a media frenzy in minutes!

About a year ago filmmaker Kevin Smith (creator of cult classics like Dogma, Clerks and Chasing Amy), got thrown off a Southwest Airline flight to Burbank, because he was apparently to overweight to fit in his seat. The airline’s guidelines for “customers of size” stated that if you can’t lower both armrests while seated, you have to book two seats. As it were, only one seat was available, and an enraged Smith had to leave the flight.

Furiously her tweeted a series of angry tweets about the incident, tagged the airline in them, and sent them out to his 1.6 million followers. The reaction was instant, and as the rant was retweeted around the world, Southwest Airlines was suddenly facing tide wave of complaints from people who sympathised with Smith, and thousands of newspaper articles potentially giving people a very negative view of the company.

Too fat? The verdict is inconclusive.

Southwest quickly realized they had a PR crisis on their hands, and after frantically trying to apologise via Twitter, Southwest was forced to issue a lengthy, public apology and a refund to the film director. They also explained their decision on their blog, in a careful attempt of self-defence.

This case wasn’t entirely a win for Smith and a loss for Southwest though, proving that you can’t always count on the people backing you up against companies.

As anyone who’s ever been on a flight next to a “person of size” can vouch for, it is quite annoying to have your own, already small, personal space crowded by someone else’s fat, and many people applauded Southwest on their guidelines, and told Smith to go on a diet.

Now, most of us do not have nearly 2 million followers on Twitter, nor would our predicament cause worldwide media attention, but stories like the Smith-incident have caused many companies to pay close attention to what is said about them on Twitter and Facebook, and firing off a complaint on social media can be wise.

Chicago Tribune tells the story of completely normal consumers who got their complaint dealt with instantly by tweeting. It’s a good way to get noticed.

Southwest Airlines now have two employees devoted to their Twitter page, and three people monitoring their Facebook fan page.

The advantage of online complaining is that your predicament is visible to everyone on the internet, and companies are aware of the possible crisis arising from angry consumers united. In a consumer world where reputation is key and crisis can be generated from the smallest incident, the power is continuing to grow for the consumer.

PR practitoners will ignore this trend at their own peril...