The Issues, Causes, Possible Alternatives - the United Airlines - Case Study Example

United Breaks Guitar Case Name* Course Name* Instructor’s Name Date* United Breaks Guitar Case Introduction This paper presents a report of a case that faced the United Airline, which tarnished its public relations image. My duty as an independent professional consultant for the company is providing a comprehensive and robust advice to the senior managers of the company to enable them to deal with the issue in the best possible way. This report entails highlighting the issues, causes, possible alternatives, available solutions, implications of solutions, and implementation of suggestions associated with the turn of events. Executive Summary The case presented is an example of the way individuals can retaliate in protest to corporate triviality to admitting liability for destroying personal property. In this case, a musician Carroll, David experienced a challenge with the United Airlines (Carroll 2012, 10). Apparently, the airline damaged his valued Taylor guitar that cost $3500 in the course of a flight. Carroll spent more than nine months attempting to get the airline to pay for the damages instigated by baggage trainers to his Taylor guitar. In his last conversation with the Customer Relations Manager of the airline, he indicated that he had no alternative other than to create a song and post it on YouTube in order to expose United’s lack of cooperation, to which the Manager replied, “Good luck with that one, pal” (Wendy 2010, 13). Therefore, he posted the avenging video on YouTube. In the song, he intoned that he "notified three workers who displayed complete inappositeness towards him when he expressed concern to the issue” (Wendy 2010, 13). David filed an entitlement with the airline, which averred that he was unqualified for compensation due to his failure to register his complaint within its postulated fixed 24-hour timeline. The video gathered more than 13 million views. Within four days of posting, the video, the stock price of the United Airline dropped by 10%. This cost the stockholders nearly $180 million (Hayes and Kathleen 2013, 13). This also affected other airlines making the stock price of the airline to vary widely in the whole quarter. The airline contacted the artist and tried to settle the score in exchange for removing the video. Unsurprisingly his reply was, “Good luck with that one, pal” (Wendy 2013, 13). As a result, Taylor Guitars sent two new custom guitars to the artist as appreciation for making their product widely recognized resulting in a rise in orders. The case represents an example of how bad ethical conducts can destroy a business. A) Issues The United Airlines suffered because of negative public relations resulting to a catchy tune that turned out into a major YouTube hit. This triggered extensive outmoded media coverage, with the impact that the song was watched all over the world and additionally millions of people have read or heard media information regarding the story. The case represents a case study on how an angry customer used social media together with some user-generated content (Kietzmann, Kristopher, Ian and Bruno 2011, 241). Silvestre The case further illustrates the significance in the world of social media as a medium for raising concerns. The United Airline therefore needs to address its social media use and customer relationship amenities on good time (Kietzmann et al. 2011, 242). United responded comparatively faster to the song, but again failed to use its online presence in an effective way. Most of the people finding information over the issue and thus commenting online over the issue upon United Airline responding were not aware of the airline’s response. B) Causes The cause of the problem was poor response and weak public relations at the United Airline, which resulted from the main handlers at the Airline breaking Carroll’s Taylor guitar worth $3,500. Despite Carroll claiming for compensation of $1,200 to enable him, repair his guitar. The company’s reluctance to compensate him and rejecting to apologize to him nine months down the line compelled him to do a song about the incident, and posting it on YouTube (Carroll 2012, 10). Carroll then composed two extra modest hits regarding the United Airlines’ incident. Therefore, the major cause of the issue is poor handling of the issue by the United Airline as well as missing on Twitter and YouTube (Gensler, Franziska, Yuping and Caroline 2013, 242). C) Decision Criteria The decision Criteria of handling this issue is based on considerations made on several indicators. The criteria used in this report will assist in measuring all the available alternatives as well as in deciding on those to recommend, and those not to recommend as solutions. Some indicators that will assist in coming up with decisions include the following: Proper Social Media Use This aspect is an important indicator that will affect how the United Airline handles its social media. This is because social media and the internet were an important platform through which the airline encountered criticism (Gensler et al. 2013, 242). This indicator is important because the airline had shown disinterest in keeping up with the reaction from the public. This silenced their traditional news channel. This platform is explored because the airline’s YouTube Channel turned out to be the channel for negative and snarky comments, with no response from the airline. In addition, this platform is important as it can assist in responding to the incident of the broken guitar and in apologizing on behalf of the company. This indicator will affect the airline’s social media communication department (Gensler et al. 2013, 243). Channel of Response to Complains This case represents a crisis in the channels of communications. This led into disorder in resolving issues amicably. This indicator will most likely affect the HR and legal personnel (Kesavan, Michael, and Oswald 2013, 13). These two entities have to take a low profile in this case. This indicator is important because there is a need for establishing proper communication channels. This department will look into the content on the corporate channel of YouTube, whether as promotional or commercial videos. This is because the total of views for their highest popular video is lower when compared to the number of views for Carroll’s video. This suggests that United needs to improve in their responses and serving up connection in order to address the issue harmoniously. Ethical Issues Ethical issues are important indicators in this case. This is because the airline failed to act in an ethical way. Ethical issues are supposed to be considered because they speak a lot about the image of the airline (Kesavan, Michael, and Oswald 2013, 14). This issue will affect the customer care desk and the stakeholders of the company, who bore the greatest losses because of the neglect of moral issues portrayed by the case. Customer Care Relations This is an important indicator, which affects the customer decisions made by the airline. The airline failed miserably in instituting proper mechanisms of dealing with grievances raised by clients (Hayes and Kathleen 2013, 18). This indicator affects the public relations department of the airline. This indicator will be very essential in deciding on the most appropriate course of action of dealing with the issue comprehensively. D) Alternatives Several alternatives are analyzed in order to address the challenges identified. These alternatives will be measured against the Decision Criteria to assist in the clear identification and selection of the better and less desirable options. Firstly, proper use of social media could be an important alternative to amicably resolving the issue and eliminating the copious amount of negativity. The Company could opt to use their own YouTube channel and Facebook fan page in handling the situation. This could be a good platform for ensuring that they address the wide criticisms generated by Carroll’s video (Hayes and Kathleen 2013, 18). Secondly, instantaneous response could assist in stopping the large outburst of negativity before it even occurs. In the ideal universe, in order to get a response from a company, only one negative comment needs to be posted on YouTube. Immediate response on different online communication channels will inform the community of the steps the company has taken in dealing with the issue (Carroll 2012, 19). The result of this is that people will not strike back with as much force against the first scenario because a resolution will be attained. Another important alternative is making several changes within the company. For instance, the company could review its procedures for handling baggage. The period of allowed for lodging complains could as well be extended from the normal 24 hours into maybe 48 hours. These changes could lead to a much better result to the condition (Kesavan, Michael, and Oswald 2013, 19). E) Recommended Solutions The United Airline will have to reexamine its social media use and PR strategies. Realistically, the company could not compete with entertainment or satire entities in public opinion battles. With all resources at its disposal, the United Airlines were affected by imaginative storytelling. The main problem of the United Airlines is its failure to follow the primary rule of crisis communications by expressing regret and attempting to make restitutions. United’s failure in leveraging and integrating their online networks is supposed to be corrected (Kesavan, Michael, and Oswald 2013, 22). As a professional consultant, I would recommend that the company should evaluate content as well as response rules for comments in their YouTube Channel. Customer service is also an issue. This therefore means that they should have more videos of what the company is doing in order to enhance their services as well as instructional videos dealing with what customers have to do in case their baggage is lost or damaged. The Twitter experience could also be used to respond to complaints from customers as well as in reaching out to individuals who tweet (Scott 2011, 26). Their mistake of not stating the word guitar or Carroll’s name in the tweet was aimed at ensuring that those looking out for tweets associated with the topic would not find the United Airlines. This further made the company to miss their audience. Therefore, the firm has to change its approach to such issues. F) Implementation and Implications In order to implement these recommendations, a number of things have to be considered. This could include giving as much authority as possible to individuals who interact straight with the airline’s customers. This could require training these people on customer care, public relations, and office etiquette to enable them to make proper decisions. This department will be expected to respond promptly to any public relation and brand issues, which arise to enable them to take appropriate actions. In order to prevent future PR related problems, quick and easy problem-escalation paths will be developed. This will assist in resolving the customer’s with immediate effect without having to seek the manager’s endorsement or presence (Scott 2011, 29). This is because the initial solution is usually the best. The company should also monitor its social media in order for it to understand people’s opinion on the future of public relations of the company. This will further assist in resolving issues amicably should clients raise them. Ethical Behavior It is ethical that the United Airlines owns up to its mistakes. By being on the wrong, the company has to accept responsibility and portray a suitable level of remorse. Acting ethically can compel the public to be forgiving if appropriate measures are undertaken to own a mistake or attempts of making right any wrongs. The real facts have to be presented because in most occasions, bad publicity is normally found on rumor and speculation rather than on the real events (Gensler et al. 2013, 256). Company Stakeholders The BBC had reported that the stock price of the United Airline had dropped by 10 percent within the first four weeks of the video’s release. This represented a reduced valuation of stakeholder’s money. Making important decisions have to consider the views and judgment of all the relevant stakeholders of the company. Their rights and views should be respected, as these are highly likely to raise ethical and social legitimacy issues (Hayes and Kathleen 2013, 26). Credible Analysis In order to find the most appropriate solutions, there is a great need of identifying any assumptions portrayed by the given solutions. The decisions made should be reasonable and with facts that strengthen, the inferences made. The conclusions achieved have to apply in the context of the challenges experienced by the company. Bibliography Carroll, Dave. 2012. United breaks guitars: the power of one voice in the age of social media. Carlsbad, Calif.: Hay House. Gensler, Sonja, Franziska Völckner, Yuping Liu-Thompkins, and Caroline Wiertz. 2013. "Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment." Journal of Interactive Marketing 27, no. 4: 242-256. Hershey, M, 2012. A Social Media Revolution. New York: Routledge. Hayes, Bob, and Kathleen Kotwica. 2013. Crisis Management at the Speed of the Internet: Trend Report. UK: Elsevier. Kesavan, Ram, Michael D. Bernacchi, and Oswald AJ Mascarenhas. "Word of Mouse: CSR Communication and the Social Media” International Management Review 9, no.1: 13-25. Kietzmann, Jan H., Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, and Bruno S. Silvestre. 2011. "Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media." Business horizons 54, no. 3: 241-251. 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