What a novel idea for companies: Apologize when you make a mistake
I don’t care what calculated advice your PR company gives you, this is how you start correcting a mistake if you run a consumer business, or any business for that matter. It’s called a sincere apology and it’s been helping men stay out of the dog house since the dawn of time. Watch as JetBlue CEO David Neeleman publicly apologizes on YouTube to his customers. He takes full responsibility after leaving numerous passengers stranded on a frozen tarmac for 10.5 hours at JFK. Admirable.
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Agreed. To think that any large corporation would respond to a crisis without a PR team is just foolishness. I doubt that Neeleman filmed that video with his webcam and posted it in YT himself. 🙂
What makes the apology effective is the fact that everything that Neeleman has done with his company thus far makes me feel like every word he says is sincere. I wouldn’t believe an apology from a stuffed shirt in a corner office, but I do believe a guy who serves meals on his flights and works in a cubicle with the rest of his company.
I could have written this more clearly. I wasn’t suggesting that Neelemen did this without the help of what is clearly a competent PR team over at JetBlue. Rather, there are PR firms that give bunk advice to clients (i.e. “you don’t need to apologize).
I watched Neeleman on David Letterman the other night and was very impressed at the way he is responding to this customer service black-eye. I really appreciate it when companies can take the blame for something that goes wrong. If Jet Blue flew more places out of Phoenix, I would definitely give them a try.
agreed. Neeleman’s true belief system is showing forth. Very nice to have someone so authentic at the helm of such a large company.
I knew jetBlue wasn’t very old, but I about fell out of my chair when he said “7 years.” that’s amazing what they have done in that amount of time considering the industry, the cost of airplanes, etc….
this video has him in it, but if you look at the name of the user who posted it … jetBluecorpcomm or jet blue’s PR department.
There are a lot of spinsters our there, but there are some smart PR people who understand what you say in your post. jetBlue has one of those PR teams.
More importantly, it has an open and honest management team that is willing to do what these people recommend.