Beware Of The Chilli Pepper Social Media Spray
Nov 9th, 2009 by admin
The couple's drama began Tuesday, Nov. 3, when they arrived in Frankfurt and couldn't board their St. Petersburg flight without visas, despite being told by an Expedia agent that they weren't required.
Their bad luck escalated: Expedia told them they had no record of the visa conversation, and the company's offer of a $100 hotel voucher covered only a third of the actual cost. The Russian consulate was closed because of a holiday. As Thomas wrote in her blog, Rules for Anchorites, "This is getting to levels of awful I can't even describe."
At the same time, however, Thomas' supporters were peppering cyberspace with outraged appeals to Expedia. And by Thursday morning, wrote Thomas, "Expedia, to their absolute credit, e-mailed us and admitted wholeheartedly that their agent was at fault. They'll be refunding our trip and offered us a credit toward future travel. That's more than we ever expected, and they really did go out of their way to make it right." more
Interesting. Was it not for the ability to amplify (peppering cyberspace with) their message, using social media, these individuals would be still be stranded.
The social media lesson for business:- As a business you don't have to wait for bad social-media-press before you get on board. Adopt social media, because your supporters will amply for your message….just like these friends supported their friends in need … they will support your business, if they trust you. And you can establish relationships with online tools. Even if you don't adopt social media, they will amply stories about you, even of you don't like it. But when you are part of the social media conversation, then you can share, lead, and apologise, long before it becomes clouds of pepper spray.
- You got to set your online social radar, to detected any mention of your name or your brand. I assume, that the problem here, was that Expedia, had no online brand-tracking-device set up to early-warn them of the online conversation.
