Perhaps the airline has learned from painful experience
Could it be that United Airlines has learned something from the series of crisis management mistakes it’s made over the past couple years? The company accidentally priced some fares at $0 on its website recently, which meant an unspecified number of customers bought tickets that typically cost hundreds of dollars for the price of a security fee.
Word FLEW across the web, and especially social media, leaving all eyes on United to see how it would react. What did the airline do? This Facebook post says it all:
It’s impossible to say how much the incident cost United, but the incredibly positive response the company received proves that doing the right thing will net you returns in the end. Their sole Facebook post on the matter has nearly 4,000 Likes and 500 comments, the overwhelming majority of which are through-the-roof happy, and a huge number of news outlets wrote positive stories on the airline, a load of good publicity that could very well have cost just as much, if not more, than giving away the tickets had they paid a marketing agency to create and publicize a story.
In the end, eliciting responses like this is how you, as a brand, ensure that entire families will be advocates for life:
An average American, telling thousands of your stakeholders how your company made it easier for her to see her son in the flesh before he heads out to serve our country. Does it get any better?
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com