How do you protect your company's online reputation in social media? It's easy -- apologize and engage.
That seems to be a tack taken by an increasing number of travel companies, including Expedia.com and Delta Air Lines, as they apologize at times to people making some of the most virulent rants on Facebook and Twitter and seek to engage them.
For example, Expedia posted a video Aug. 8 on its Facebook page from travel writer and Travel Blog Exchange founder Kim Mance on why Americans should take more vacations.
As of this writing, there were 58 comments under the video and some of Expedia's Facebook "fans" used the opportunity to take shots at Expedia.
Benjamin Rothchild (which might be a pseudonym) made a series of comments such as:
“I was overcharged by Expedia in Amsterdam many times and was misinformed by customer service and I lost a night at a crap hotel in NYC.”
He also opined:
“To be honest, Expedia is much better than its competitors but why compare poison? They are all slime. Traveling is no longer fun anymore thanks to slime publicly traded corporations and Marxist unAmerican current USA administration.”
Expedia responded on Facebook: "Hi Benjamin, we're sorry to hear that you feel this way. Please email our team directly at [email protected] with the details along with your itinerary number and telephone number. Thank you"
Sometimes when companies respond to the most aggressive comments, the aggrieved are taken aback that their rants actually elicited a response.
It certainly can be an effective way to neutralize a savage comment and to get the problem resolved, although the strategy didn't seem to work with Rothchild.
Rothchild responded on the Facebook page to Expedia:
“Expedia, don’t get me wrong. You are the best website for travel but like I keep saying there’s nothing you can do. It’s the system that’s the problem. Corporations are the problem. There’s no dam accountability like a family owned business. A family owned business has one thing a corporation can never have -- family pride and accountability linked to the family name.”
But, if Expedia had induced Rothchild into mellowing a bit, he quickly recovered and posted some more disparaging remarks.
In the same vein, Elyse Bilodeau Monska complained to Expedia that she cancelled a room two months early and got charged for one night, and Patrick Danielson eloquently complained to Expedia:
“Yea, I had a two-week stay at a hotel and it took 6 hours on the phone and a snapshot of someone smoking crack outside my window before they let me out of that dump.”
As it did with Rothchild, Expedia's Facebook team apologized to both Bilodeau Monska and Danielson and urged them to email customer service.
There were lots more complaints in the comments under Mance's video on Expedia's Facebook page -- and several more Expedia apologies and requests to email customer service with particulars and as a means to keeping customer information private.
Expedia was slow to get involved in social media, but now appears to be taking to it.
Meanwhile, over on Twitter, DeltaAssist, which is the airline's customer service outlet, has been at it awhile and has taken apologizing and engaging with travelers in social media to new levels. Delta is one of the most active travel companies on Twitter.
This goes on 24/7.
It sure seems as if social media apologies and engagement are becoming a new industry standard.
Of course, many travel companies do not use social media for customer service and leave the rants unanswered.