Crisis Made Bigger: Carolina Girls
A teenage girl went to a store in North Carolina to buy a wallet. A post from a client caused the crisis. According to her, when she walked into the store, she heard an employee tell another employee: “Shoplifter” (Social Media for Business,” 2018). The teenage girl was black, and this was interpreted as racism by the girl’s mom. The girl’s mother decided to post her daughter’s experience at the store on Facebook, and the post went viral.
The company reacted the very next day after the crisis began. They posted an announcement with details about a “thorough” investigation that determined that employees were never involved in any kind of negative comments toward customers entering the store (Social Media for Business,” 2018). They also apologized, in private, to the people involved in the incident at the store. Then, the company decided to respond to negative comments from angry customers; they also decided to delete those negative comments a little after they were originally posted. The deletion of the comments fueled the crisis. In the end, the company deleted the entire Facebook page.
The crisis was not properly managed. In the beginning, Carolina Girls apologized and reached out to the person involved in private. But they made things bigger by making it public, trying to show the public that they were not at fault in this situation. By being part of a crowd of angry costumers, they created the space for more negative comments. Then, by deleting those negative comments, they eliminated any chance of fixing the crisis. There is no way anyone can trust a company that deletes comments online.
The company could have decided not to post the announcement in the first place. Companies have constant complaints, and most go away within a few days after people read them online and forget about them. They could have left the apologies in private and let the crisis pass by itself, with time. They could have responded to the negative comments, or not engage at all with the public. The company could have left their Facebook page open as a sign that the company has nothing to fear.
In the business world, there is a saying that goes like this: “the customer is always right.” This should remain a “universal truth” for companies when dealing with a crisis, especially on social media. It doesn’t matter what the customer did wrong, or what the company didn’t do right: constantly denying and using “counterclaims” to deal with a crisis almost always ends in a disaster. Another lesson that could be learned is to make sure that you don’t leave any open doors to make the problem bigger; meaning, apologize and explain all at once so that the public is clear about where you stand as a company, and stay in that position until the crisis is over (Social Media for Business,” 2018).
References
6 examples of social media crises: What can we learn? — Our Social Times — Social Media for Business. (2018, January 24). Retrieved from https://oursocialtimes.com/6-examples-of-social-media-crises-what-can-we-learn/
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