After this scandal, United has a long road to take to fix what they have done. No one will forget this but there are a few things United can do. The first would be to completely acknowledge what they did was wrong and they should have never blamed Dr. Dao. The second would be to do a full review of their policies. United should take time to enhance their customer commitment and create some goals and philosophies that would comfort future travelers. United needs to have strong PR in order to get through this scandal, so rebranding could be one option however that would take some time. United needs to set themselves apart from the industry and ultimately make people forget that this happened. For example when the BP oil spill happened, the company changed their name to show that they care about what they did wrong. Today, many people don’t even remember the BP oil spill. I believe United should do something similar with their motto “Fly friendlier skies” in order to improve and allow people to trust them again. Even though United will never be able to completely bounce back from this situation, there are many courses of action they can take that will eventually help them. There are top PR gurus that have suggested a course of action for United below are two:
Matt Rizzetta, CEO, North 6th Agency
“If the initial reaction on social media and at office water coolers is any indication, United has already lost a significant group of customers. United would be best served to approach its communications strategy for two customer-retention buckets: one for customers who are loyal to the brand; and one for customers who claim they are never coming back. For the first bucket, it’s all about quick communication that reinforces United’s values and shows immediate differentiation from the competition. The second bucket is a long-term strategy that will require a more personalized approach and can only be rebuilt over time.”
Katie Sprehe, director of reputation research, APCO Insight
“My advice to United would be to take responsibility immediately and admit fault. It should explain how this happened and what it is doing in the future to prevent it from occurring again. This might be an opportunity for United to set itself apart from the industry and say it is looking into alternatives to overbooking passengers. Airline customers place high importance on the actual experience of flying. Yet, time and time again, airlines are failing to meet this basic expectation of good customer service.”
The framework behind United’s successful journey through this situation is Utilitarianism. They have to think in terms of what is the greater good for the greatest amount of people. The question they want pose is: “What can I do to make people safe while flying with us?” United has lost a lot of sales and many customers that this framework would allow them to put pieces together to figure out how they can best serve the community again. This was a teleological framework however United can use a deontological framework as well. United can look at virtue ethics to find the “Golden Mean” in this situation. How they can take this situation and find a middle ground that will work for everyone: the company and customers. While both would be useful frameworks when put together, United should stand with a utilitarian point of view where they are looking at the greatest good for current and future customers. Standing out this way will help people realize that they are really committed to their customer's safety in their flights.
Including the responses of two widely known PR gurus was a good idea and it brought in the outsider perspective of people who are experts in this area. One comment on the style would be that its alot of text on one page. Very good content but I think putting a graphic or maybe a screenshot of a quote could have broken it up more.
ReplyDeleteDo you think United is sincerely looking to change or are they just saying things to try to get the situation to calm down? Although they lost customer sales do you think that the airplane industry in general is pretty stable and with few competitors those who are somewhat neutral may just stay with United? In particular those with a large amount of "frequent flier " points.
I think United should strive to make a change. This will impact them for a long time and due to this many people have become a little scared to fly any airlines. I also feel like many companies took this as an opportunity to create sales for themselves. I know other airlines who spoke out about this issue and comforted the flyers. Although the industry did not take a big hit, there was a little bit of impact both good and bad.
DeleteGood theory about what will work in the utilitarian and deontological framework analyses. In terms of United following a utilitarian analysis in the future, would they be analyzing the benefit to stakeholders in different groups? Because it seems like, often times, what would be good for one group might not be good for another (e.g. employees, shareholders, and customers). While they could still pick what is best for the majority, do you think that might mean one group is always getting the best deal?
ReplyDeleteI think picking their customers would be the group they primarily want to focus on. Doing something that insane and still having more cases has hurt them severely. Looking at what is best for the customers will eventually be the best option.
DeleteIt will be interesting to see how much this scandal costs United when all is said and done. It will be huge compared to the money it would have cost to incentivize more customers off the flight and even compared to the money it would have cost for the flight the three flight attendants were trying to make it for, to not depart. I'm looking forward to seeing the plan United releases on April 30th.
ReplyDeleteUtilitarian POV would be great. If user management started asking questions about the greater good, I’m sure things would be run a little more easily. But think, if they didn’t overbook flights, then people would be missing flights. When people miss flights they have empty seats. When there are empty seats, the airline will make less money. When they make less money, they will compensate by up charging other tickets. So we are left to wonder, is this already the greater good?
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