Walk in the Shoes of United Airlines When the Worst Happened

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How technology could have improved 2017’s most discussed crisis response

When Dr Dao was forcibly dragged from that United Airlines plane sitting on the tarmac at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on April 9th 2017, it was a Sunday.

Why does the day of the week matter? Because it’s not a regular business day.

We are not privy to the details of United’s process in responding to the incident, but there are reasonable conjectures we can make.

Sunday’s a bad day to get the crisis team together

Sunday’s a tough day to get hold of management, corporate communications team members and the leaders of United’s operations. People are with their families, enjoying early season baseball games and doing all the good stuff that helps us unwind after a tough week.

So United bought a little time, presumably hoping that nothing much would happen until all their most important folks returned to the office on Monday.

However, by Monday, an issue that, had it been better managed on the Sunday would have faded from view, was a conflagration threatening the good name and customer loyalty of United Airlines.

Videos had been viewed millions of times showing ugly perspectives of how the incident unfolded ‘starring’ the unfortunate and bloodied Dr Dao, a passenger who had booked and paid for his seat.

The initial limp response from United, presumably meant to buy time until the full team got the office on Monday, had been widely derided as uncaring and totally missing the point.

How a crisis management platform would have averted the reputation disaster

The first few hours when a threatening issue first emerges are crucial to how the organization responds and gains control of the situation.

There’s no need to find that thick binder with all the (hopefully, but probably not) updated crisis planning materials.

There’s no need to scramble to find contact numbers for senior management and the crisis team members.

The one thing that your team are guaranteed to have with them is their smartphones, whatever day it is and no matter the time of day.

Smartphones contain what they need, the platform, containing all the contact details and the pre-prepared crisis response protocols and materials.

With a couple of clicks and within minutes, the entire team would be gathered on a call, sharing information about the incident, accessing relevant parts of the crisis plan and developing on a robust corporate response.

From then on, the huge range of functionality within the platform gives the team all the tools they require to seamlessly collaborate to regain control of the story and get ahead of the version unfolding on the internet.

The inadequate alternatives

No matter what the day of the week, none of this functionality to manage a crisis is available on intranets, cloud-based drives or any other way of storing and accessing crisis preparedness materials.

Think how different United’s response on Sunday April 9th might have looked – and how they might have avoided the reputation and business damage that followed.

 

Buyers Guide for Issue and Crisis Management Platforms