How to Repair Your Brand Reputation After a CS Distaster

Given the recent slew of high-profile scandals by tech giants Facebook, Uber and Verizon, and the empowerment of the customer voice through social media, companies find themselves in the “era of the apology,” as one Wharton professor billed it. Businesses have to consider how a blunder can impact long-term customer loyalty and brand reputation.

Today’s businesses compete on more than just product: it’s about their ability to meaningfully connect with customers. And on the backend, brand image affects agent engagement and performance. Agents who lack pride in the brand are more likely to become dissatisfied and leave, thus creating additional recruiting and training challenges for the organization.

When you-know-what hits the fan and an apology is owed, here are three things to consider before you execute damage control:

1. Was the violation core to your customer service mission?
2. What is the public’s potential reaction?
3. Is your organization really committed to change?

With this in mind, we assessed the apology campaigns of Facebook, Wells Fargo and Domino’s and their various “attitudes.”

Facebook: Playing it cool

In theory, the formula for a sincere corporate apology is simple: Customers want companies to acknowledge what they did wrong and to feel reassured that the company is tangibly fixing the problem. When Facebook was publicly excoriated this year for sharing the data of 87 million users with third parties, it launched the biggest brand marketing campaign in company history to avoid losing its user base as #deleteFacebook call-to-arms proliferated. The tech giant released an emotive, minute-long TV ad bearing the tagline “Here together” to remind users why they had joined the social network in the first place.

But the ad failed to acknowledge the data breach, couching it in an extreme euphemism: “Something happened,” before elaborating:  “We had to deal with spam, clickbait, fake news, and data misuse.” Aside from casting Facebook as a victim, the video failed to mention Facebook’s plan to protect user data.

But what Facebook did do well was reiterating its brand values and origins so its customers would trust them to rectify the problem. “[A brand] is represented by the values they represent rather than the products they sell,” Brian Cantor, CCW Principal Analyst, wrote in a recent Special Report on Brand Reputation. “They, after all, are speaking to customers who are looking for brands to trust, love and endorse.”

An apology has to be geared towards a specific customer segment or demographic - in this case, Facebook appealed to its legacy users who created accounts when the site first launched in 2004.

Wells Fargo: We’re sorry, but don’t forget that we’ve been in business for a long time

After being outed for creating tens of thousands of fake accounts under the names of existing customers to meet breakneck sales targets, Wells Fargo launched an apology tour touting the tagline: “Wells Fargo: Established 1852. Re-established 2018.”

Despite following the same throwback-to-origins formula as Facebook, the ads bore more signs of remorse, promising “a complete recommitment to you,” and announced that Wells Fargo would end product sales goals for branch bankers. Instead, the company introduced a performance-based incentive program to reward employees based partly on customer experience metrics.

Domino’s: Wallowing in it

Candor, remorse and a demonstrative commitment to change are the three key ingredients for a well-received apology. Domino’s “Pizza Turnaround” campaign in 2009 took it to the extreme. Employees read scathing customer comments about their pizza aloud, among them: “Microwave pizza is far superior,” “the sauce tastes like ketchup,” “the crust is like cardboard” and “mass produced, boring, bland pizza.” The company went even further by showing footage of actual focus group discussions, with close-ups of employees cringing as they watched. One incredulous Domino’s chef is heard saying, “I’ve been doing this for over 20 years.”  

In addition to unbridled self-deprecation, the pizza company affirmed its commitment to change by showing behind-the-scenes footage of its test kitchen as chefs worked “around the clock” to experiment with new sauces, crusts and toppings to achieve a complete “pizza turnaround” and reinvent the product. While the ad could be interpreted as overly self-effacing and even slightly sycophantic, it does a brilliant job of showing how customer feedback is read, received and put to use to effect real change.

“We are proving to our customers that we are listening to them by brutally accepting the criticism that’s out there.We think that going out there and being this honest really breaks through to people in a way that most advertising does not.” Patrick Doyle, CEO

For more on how to manage your brand’s reputation, access our Special Report on Brand Reputation here by CCW Principal Analyst, Brian Cantor. (Log-in required)