How To Not Handle Technological Missteps: A Lesson from Peloton

On the morning of Wednesday, August 10^th, indoor cyclists, runners, and yogis around the country arose from their nightly slumbers, started their coffee machines, and dressed in their workout clothes. They mixed their pre-workout beverages, put on their shoes, clicked them into the Peloton bike, hopped on the track, or lay on their mat. It was at this moment the exercisers realized their $2,000 machines and $45 monthly subscriptions were not working and there were no classes available to be taken.

At 9:30 AM PDT, Peloton released a Twitter statement on the issue:

“We’re currently investigating an issue with live and on-demand classes. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to your workouts.  Please check http://status.onepeloton.com for updates.”

Undeterred and still excited to get their stacked class schedule started, eager exercisers launched the status page for incident updates. Unfortunately, for a large part of the day, the status page read, “All Systems Operational” even though systems were far from operational.

Customers were livid. Some began blaming the exercise company for their morning donut binge. Others showed off their beautiful, mountainous backyards while complaining about their workout window being wasted. One even claimed that the Peloton outage made her bullish bulldog lethargic.

It may be tempting to dismiss these customer complaints as laughable; especially since some customers were blaming the broken application for things completely unrelated to Peloton. But these customers were angry, and that anger was not irrational —they were relying on a service that stopped working with seemingly no warning or explanation. For some, the event happened on the same day as their billing cycle. One resentful cyclist responded to Peloton’s Twitter statement saying, “There was no issue taking out my $44 fee this morning though huh?”

Peloton did not approach this situation through a customer-centric lens. Instead, the company wrote it off as “not a big deal” and, after a singular tweet, seemed to pretend it did not happen. How should Peloton have handled it, though? And how should your company deal with similar issues? It’s simple: overcommunicate. In other words, be transparent, send an abundance of messages, and be proactive with your communication. TAP your customer.

Transparent

The old saying goes, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” Perhaps the team at Peloton thought that, if they did not address the class outage, those taking the day off from working out would never know of the fault. This could perhaps be true, but it comes at the expense of the users affected not receiving adequate support (and these same individuals are likely Peloton’s best customers). By not fully acknowledging the issue, Peloton makes already frustrated individuals feel like they are wasting their time and money with a company that could not care less about them. Even though admitting culpability would alert those unaware that there was a problem, potentially making them anxious about similar issues occurring in the future, it comes with a higher customer satisfaction reward overall.

Abundant

Peloton has its users’ contact information, including home addresses, two phone numbers, and an email address. Despite all the possible ways of contacting users when there was an outage, however, Peloton chose to use Twitter, a platform on which they have 210 thousand followers and only a percentage of their customer base. This communication route is far from sufficient. In situations like this, it is nearly impossible for a company to overshare. By sending out a standard text and email saying, “Thank you for contacting us about the issue regarding our class outage. We are working to have the issue resolved within a few hours” customers would have much more peace of mind than staring at a blank screen, thinking it was their machine that was broken.

Proactive

Even better than admitting culpability— notify the exercisers of the outage before they try to begin their workout. There is one thing HP, PG&E, and Chewy all have in common: they use proactive insights to improve customer satisfaction. The diverse fields these companies cover (electronics; power, gas, and electrics; pet supplies) show that any company can do this, it’s just a matter of using the right technology. Once Peloton’s system went down, it would have been optimal to notify users that there was an issue, and it would be resolved within a few hours. As previously mentioned, they have an abundance of contact information. By picking one and sending a message to all users saying, “We are aware of an issue and are working on a solution,” or possibly even just having a more descriptive popup on the broken class screen, customers would be spared the disappointment of getting ready to workout and then not being able to. These issues are far better than short a tweet seen only when one is sitting on the floor, lamenting the workout that could have been.  

It is a well-known fact that the Peloton is not the cheapest way to stay in shape. Customers pay for it, though, because, like the Equinox Luxury Fitness Centers and Lifetime Athletic Country Clubs, they expect a high-end, catered experience. During the outage, Peloton fell way short. One cyclist tweeted, “So let me get this straight: I paid more than $2,000 for the bike and a subscription every month and I can’t ride this morning because… #Pelotondown.” Obviously, Peloton missed the mark this round, but there is no reason they cannot learn from their mistakes. By improving customer service and “tapping” them when there are outages, Peloton can spur company growth and customer loyalty. Better yet—you can learn from Peloton and prevent your company from taking the same missteps.

Photo by Andrew Valdivia on Unsplash