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Mark Ragan
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28
When I was a reporter just out of college, I landed a newspaper job in a rural backwater of South Carolina. I had grown up in Chicago under the liberal hand of my father, Larry Ragan. Dad was a card-carrying member of the ACLU, a supporter of George McGovern and the Kennedys, and a believer in religious tolerance. He raised his kids the same way.
So I was not prepared for the religious mallet that so many southern politicians used back then to combat reporters investigating them — and that a few still wield today.
My favorite memory was how one local politician, upon meeting me the first week I was on the beat, asked me whether I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior.
“Huh?,” I think was my reply.
Two months into the job, the question seemed, well, normal.
All of this came flooding back to me when I saw the clip below from a St. Louis, Missouri television station.
Watch how this county commissioner handles this reporter’s relentless questioning about potential waste of taxpayer dollars.
At Ragan, we have dubbed this video, “the worst media relations ever.”
I have three observations about this clip.
The first is obvious: What does Jesus have to do with spending on correctional institutions? I think we can all agree that this is an inappropriate way to respond to a serious journalist.
The second observation, however, is far more interesting: Note the reporter’s response. Without missing a beat, he quickly makes it clear that, yes, he actually does love Jesus, thank you. The whole bizarre episode is taken completely in stride, as if to say, “I get this Jesus-loving question all the time around here. “
Finally, the video shows that despite the knitting together of our nation by television, the movies and all that is ubiquitous about popular culture, there are still huge differences in acceptable behavior between regions of the country, particularly the North and South.
Whenever I teach seminars south of the Mason-Dixon line, I watch every word I say, fearing that any language deemed inappropriate could unleash a torrent of criticism by seminar attendees.
During a workshop in Atlanta a few years ago, I referred repeatedly to the word “penis” during a presentation on headlines. The word had appeared twice on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine, and I was making light of it with my Ragan colleagues Jim Ylisela and Steve Crescenzo. We thought nothing of it; after all, it’s not the kind of word that will get you into trouble before Chicago audiences.
During the first break of the day, a woman approached me with a question I simply could not answer:
“Sir, why did you use the word penis so much?”
After blurting out something unsatisfactory — “because it’s so damn funny” — the woman threatened to lead a walk-out of five people who had been offended by our morning session.
The moral of the story: Don’t ever assume that regional differences have vanished in this country. If you do, you may be the one in the need of an instant crisis communication plan.
May
22
A few years ago an angry customer sent me an e-mail complaining about one of Ragan’s workshops. The letter caught me at the exact wrong moment, and I exploded. Something about the letter seemed fake. Then I remembered: This was the person who left early on the first day and never returned. How could she hate a workshop she never attended?
Here’s where everything went wrong. I wrote what I thought was a hilarious letter to my conference staff ridiculing the customer for playing hookey. It was one of those cathartic, get-it- out-of-your-system tirades. But then I hit “reply” instead of “forward.”
If you’ve ever been in this situation, you know the feeling. You realize your mistake as soon as your finger lifts off the key and your entire body goes into super slow-mo as you scream,”nooooooooo!!!”
If ever I needed a crisis communication plan it was then.
I immediately chased my horrible letter with a plea for understanding. I began with a heartfelt apology. It was sincere, of course; I was indeed mortified. But guessing that everyone has had a similar experience in their lives, I took a chance. I asked if this had ever happened to her. Not only did she write back to say she understood — and that yes, she had once made a similar blunder — she thought the entire event was great fun.
I thought of this when I saw what happened to Countrywide Financial Corp’s CEO Angelo Mozilo the other day.
Like every other mortgage lender today, Countrywide has been in a tailspin. It issued tens of thousands of bad loans to customers who everyone up the lending food chain knew could never pay back. Every day has been a pretty crappy day ever since. So you can imagine the kind of mood Mozilo may have been in.
Here’s how this PR disaster unfolded. A customer sent an e-mail to Mozilo with a plea to save his home of 16 years. The letter struck Mozilo as fake, it actually sounded like the kind of canned letter offered up by Internet sites that purport to help customers get loan relief. “This is unbelievable,” Mozilo wrote in an e-mail he thought was going to his staff. “Most of these letters now have the same wording. Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the Internet. Disgusting.”
The letter ended up on an online forum, then it hit the blogosphere. As Paul Harvey likes to say, “now you know the rest of the story.” Full PR panic ensued.
Mozilo’s PR team issued a statement to reporters: “Countrywide and Mr. Mozilo regret any misunderstanding caused by his inadvertent response to an e-mail by Mr. Bailey.”
The statement backpedals further: “Countrywide is actively working to help borrowers, like Mr. Bailey, keep their homes.”
PR Goof #1: Calling the fiasco a “misunderstanding.” What “misunderstanding?” This was the exact wrong word to use, the exact wrong tone to take. This was no “misunderstanding.” It was a mistake — an embarrassing, monumental, silly, humiliating whale of a mistake. So say it. Step out onto the public stage and take it in the testes. It’s your only hope.
PR Goof #2: Claiming that Countrywide actually cares about all of the people it’s foreclosing on. Look, maybe it’s true. Maybe there is some collective sadness at Countrywide that is prompting it to help the people they screwed with sub-prime loans. It doesn’t matter. The public is in no mood to hear how Countrywide cares. They already look at Mozilo and see Well-Fed, Cigar-Chomping Big Shot. So put a lid on the “we care” crap. No one believes it. Besides, care is what care does in these scenarios.
One final thought on this subject.
A recent article appeared in The New York Times that supports this “shut the F—up and apologize” crisis plan.
A study found that doctors who apologize to their patients immediately after they screw up are sued less, even when they make horrifying mistakes like removing the wrong rib. This is not some airy theory. There are real stats to back this up.
At the University of Illinois, for example, of 37 cases where the hospital acknowledged a preventable error and apologized, only one patient filed suit. At the University of Michigan Health System, existing claims and lawsuits dropped from 262 in August 2001 to 83 in August 2007, and legal costs fell by two-thirds.
Moral of the story: People want to forgive, but they don’t want to forgive pompous jackasses who refuse to admit their mistakes.
May
21
Why does customer service suck at most major airlines? Why do airline employees appear to detest their customers? I know it’s a pipedream, but wouldn’t it be cool if Delta or United Airlines explained why their workers seem so miserable?
The best corporate blogs succeed when they do the unexpected, when they take on bad news with jaw-dropping honesty and candor—and more importantly, when the post is deeply personal.
Is it really that hard to do? Let me take a stab at the lead:
“The customer satisfaction survey came out today, and once again we didn’t do as well as we would have liked. It’s been a tough time in our industry. Actually, it’s been a dreadful time—ever since Sept. 11, 2001. Our employees are human: They do backbreaking work only to watch as financial pressures deny them a raise or force a cut in benefits.”
But instead we get a blog post from Delta that tells us how to complain properly.
Nancy, a senior analyst with customer care, offered up the top ten tips for resolving a travel complaint.
Here are a few of my favorites:
No. 2 tip: Take good notes. “Rest assured, these complaints do get routed and read by managers.”
Oh yeah? Then why does nothing ever change? Besides, if I follow No. 2 tip I’d fill three legal pads before I reached “my final destination.”
No. 6 tip: Keep it short and polite. “It is easy to get bogged down in the detail when you have to read a lengthy complaint, and we may miss an important point that could weigh in your favor.”
How’s this for short and polite: Just flew your airline from Chicago to Delta. Your employees hate me. Can you do something about it?
Southwest Airlines comes the closest to offering a blog that is disarming in its candor.
When the FAA grounded its airplanes a few months ago, the airline spoke clearly and often about the allegations and even apologized at one point, something you rarely see in corporate PR.
Is it any wonder that Southwest Airlines has the highest customer satisfaction?
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