Recovering from a Crisis: Jet Blue Gets It Right
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February 20, 2007
Recovering from a Crisis: Jet Blue Gets It Right
How would you respond to a week-long fiasco of international media scrutiny and criticism following a highly publicized episode of your intolerable treatment of customers, especially if your company was founded on a pledge of superior customer service?
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If your company is Jet Blue Airlines, you apologize repeatedly, offer generous amends to your victimized customers, feature your CEO as the spokesperson taking the blame and the responsibility to fix what went wrong, communicate clearly with simple, short messages … and then take advantage of the media spotlight by recommitting to lead your industry in customer service.
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It’s classic crisis communications done right and the pay off likely will be an enhanced corporate reputation and favorable brand recognition with Jet Blue crystallized in customers’ minds as the gold standard in airline customer service.
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Last week’s ice storms and bitter cold temperatures on the U.S. East Coast grounded numerous Jet Blue planes trying to take off from its hub at New York’s Kennedy airport. Some passengers were stranded in planes out on the tarmac for up to 10 hours. Horror stories of overflowing toilets, hungry and thirsty passengers including diabetics, tempers flaring and a non-responsive airline quickly spread via mass media and Internet blogs and YouTube videos.
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Jet Blue quickly admitted it had waited too long to call for help in getting stranded passengers off the planes in the hope the weather would let up and flight could proceed.
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Jet Blue CEO David Neeleman announced this morning a $30 million investment to revamp procedures for handling disruptions in service and to launch a customer “bill of rights.”
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“We’re going to offer something that no other airline will offer customers,” Neeleman told NBC’s Matt Lauer on the Today show earlier this morning, “We’re going to be held accountable.”
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Keep a copy of this seven-minute plus interview and consider it mandatory viewing for every CEO going through crisis media training. Neeleman is masterful because he owns up to mistakes and has a clear and compelling story to tell of a company going above and beyond to make things right. The Today show interview is a slam-dunk because Jet Blue has taken real, substantive, leadership actions to mix their mess.
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Neeleman founded the company in February of 1999, with a crystal clear mission, “to bring humanity back to travel.” Staying true to that mission with the changes Neeleman announced today will further distinguish it from other airlines which have failed to capitalize on their own dark moments with such a clear-spoken commitment to superior customer service.
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Looks like there's a new leader among the airlines.
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- Jon Harmon
http://jon8332.typepad.com/force_for_good/2007/02/recovering_from.html
This article specifically addresses the effectiveness of the Jet Blue team during the media crisis. It states how they did one thing that many others have never done, admit their mistakes. This article talks about how they will “rise from the ashes” so to speak and use this as an opportunity to enhance their customer service.
This will help when we are writing our own press release because what Jet Blue did was an excellent example of how to handle a bad situation. They were able to admit they were wrong, which went a long way with the customers, and then present a solution so that the problem will never happen again. This is exactly what you need to do when you are trying to manage a crisis in your organization.