May 15, 2010
Employee Tarnished Employer’s Reputation?
In the age of socialnomics, getting the right people and providing adequate training is a matter of priority because information nowadays, spread faster because of social web.
Allow me to share this story:
A company organized an event to launch one of their products and invited press people, both from the traditional media and new media [bloggers], celebrities and other high profile people. If you have managed an event before, you understand that glitches do happen. Filipinos have patience for glitches and though inconvenienced, most would managed to keep their displeasure to themselves. Apparently, one of the invited guests chose to share her experience online from one of the staffs of the organizing group. The guest allegedly received a rude treatment. The online post went viral and was shared, retweeted, blogged and facebooked. Thus, hurt the online reputation of the company.
The company faced the unnecessary nega publicity because of an “alleged” rudeness of the staff.
Now, whether the alleged misdeed of the employee will be substantiated or not, the damaged has been done. it will take a while before the company will recover from the negative publicity.
Courtesy and GMRC is basic. Employees should be made aware how important attitude is in brand management.
Lesson learned: Hire the right people, assign them to the right job, put emphasis on “attittude” in managing and protecting a brand. Take it a step further, 1] incorporate social web in your training, 2] define your online philosophy and 3] upgrade your policies to cover online activities.
[...] Put emphasis in your training and culture development the importance of customer engagement. Build relationship with your customers, as perceived coldness and rudeness will be dealt with negative publicity. [...]
[...] were divided when the story of an “alleged” rude treatment of an events organizer staff to a blogger who was an invited guest surfaced. The blogger wrote her experience and her story [...]