There are a lot of mistakes companies or individuals can make. Most of them are forgivable. Take the Social Media blunder that the American Red Cross had to deal with this month – not a very pleasant situation, but you still know that the Red Cross is a strong organization.
There are some things, though, that a company just can’t seem to overcome, or if they do, it takes a REALLY long time. There are two mistakes in particular that spell absolute doom for a company or brand’s reputation.
1. Make a promise and then break it
Trust is a sort of mushy word, so marketers and Social Media folk stay away from it a lot of the time. However, if you think about it, trust is one of the keys that influence us in terms of who we buy from, who we work with, and who we listen to. All you have to do to see proof of how much damage this mistake can cause is to look at Toyota. Toyota made a business out of promising that they were the safest, most reliable car on the roads. The only thing that was as important was the Toyota customer. The rash of horrible accidents that occurred because of the brake pad malfunction broke promise number one. Finding out that Toyota kind of knew about that and didn’t say anything broke promise number two.
Will Toyota ever be able to gain that trust back? They’re working hard at it, but certainly for the families and friends affected by those accidents, it will take many years and a whole lot of effort to win back that relationship.
Not all broken promises result in death and injury, thank goodness, but they can leave an awfully bitter taste in peoples’ mouths. Whether you promise a product by a certain time or whether you promise to do something for someone in the online world, a broken word is comparable to a broken back for your company or brand.
2. Set expectations and don’t deliver
Setting expectations is a bit different from making promises, although in the end it could be a matter of semantics. When you make a promise, you literally say, “I promise that this is so.” or “I promise I will do this.” Setting expectations can be a bit more convoluted. You can drop a lot of hints, for example. You can have verbal conversations that don’t get taken down into the written word. A lot of expectations are set based on how people understand their relationship with you. If they trust you (there’s that word again) they are likely to think that the expectation you are setting is as good as a promise.
If you do not deliver on your expectations, the feeling you create in your customer or even your friend can be equivalent to the feeling a broken promise creates. People do not like to feel like they have been jerked around. People do not like to feel stupid. If your actions create those sentiments in people, your company or brand will suffer for it, and it again will take a long time and a lot of effort to claw back up that hill.
Mistake Prevention
There are two sad things about these two deadly mistakes. The first is that they are grossly common. The second is that they are so easily preventable. It would have been easy for Toyota to say, as soon as they identified the brake pad problem, that something was going on that needed to be fixed. It would have been easy for BP to be more forthcoming about information regarding the Gulf oil spill, right?
In the online world, these mistakes are especially easy to fall into. You’re not shaking hands with people. You’re not looking people in the eye, and it’s really, really easy to type things without thinking about what they really mean. For example, if you type that you are going to review someone’s blog and then you never do, that might not even appear as a blip on your radar. For the person you told, however, that could be a point against you. If you make a bigger promise or set a bigger expectation and don’t follow through, the ramifications can get exponentially more serious.
To prevent these scenarios, try to do the following:
1. Think before you type. How is the other person likely to view this promise or set expectation?
2. Ask yourself if you can actually deliver on what you are promising. You are far better off to say, “Gosh, I just can’t give that the time it deserves.”
3. Pull the band-aid off quickly, but with care. If you promise something and then realize you can’t do it, tell the person right away. “I know I promised to do xyz, but something came up and I’m just swamped. I’m really sorry about that.”
Three easy steps that can save you, your brand, your customers, and your community a lot of heart ache.
What do you think?
Are there mistakes that are more deadly than these? How can those mistakes be prevented? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Margie your post highlights what we heard from Jay and Amber Saturday night, Culture is at the core of successful social media. Companies don’t do Social Media it is a reflection of who they are. The blunders you point out in your post are a reflection on culture, on a number of seemingly insignificant decisions that can add up to one huge mistake.
Certainly the brake pedal is not insignificant but often major blunders like BP are an accumulation of bad decisions or apathy all related to culture.
in the NOW revolution there is increasingly nowhere to run and hide. Which is a good thing for consumers.
Thanks
Joe
That’s a great connection to make, Joe.
I wonder, however, if some of this comes down to the individual. After all, the culture of a company can be lots of things, but it’s up to the individual to live in that culture, right?
I’ve run into this in my career, not Social Media related. A representative of a publication gave us all kinds of off the ratecard rates for ad space. When they left and we reported the prices we were getting to the new rep, we were informed that those rates should not ever have been given to us. The previous person had just been low-balling everyone to get sales and commission. Was the company responsible for that or was that just on the individual?
Hmm. You’ve got me thinking now 🙂
Margie
Toyota – they are working hard but they will never change the minds of those that were seriously injured or killed. A co-worker who was a friend too was killed on Route 80 one morning driving to work. A car carrier traveling west (she was going east) had a wheel melt off and it jumped the divider and killed her instantly. This was many years ago but I still do not trust that they are receiving the proper maintenance and stopping at the proper stops to make sure that the wheels looked at oiled (if that is what they do) to ensure that it will not melt off. I cannot. The other part of the story is that she and I met on Route 80 each morning however that morning I was 3 minutes ahead. That 3 min probably saved my life. Sorry, I digressed.
We/brand make promised. Rules are set up and they are not always followed. Oops! Yeah there is no real oops when you do not address it. I promised to not fall behind in my reading of this blog and then I got sick so I am so behind that I am trying to catch up. This is minor in the grand scheme of things but is it? I failed to keep a promise. In business things happen and the businesses that address it right away are the ones that stand above the crowd. In a way we are pointing to them saying how great they are but really we should be pointing to the ones that fail to address right away. I get quality control and not wanting to expose something but we see time and time again where that backfires.
Everyone has a mistake. It happens but how we deal with it or rectify a promise that we could not keep is what increases brand loyalty by trust in the brand.
Oh gosh, Suzanne. I just want to give you a huge hug. =/