Qantas Airlines dealing with negative comments in Twitter: What We Can Learn From Qantas

Crisis management is the important thing that a company must have and be aware about. Every organisation has their own way to avoid the crisis for having good reputation in public-eye. Crisis can have a big impact on an organisation’s reputation, it means that company or organisation must consider about crisis management as well. Coombs as cited in Frandsen & Johansen (2017, p.37) defined a crisis as an “event” which is unpredictable and can have negative impact on the organisation, industry or stakeholder. The statement is very strongly focused on an “event” which can occur in every situation if the company takes wrong action for instance failed on campaign in social media, error of publicity, or even action which related with humanity or ethics, etc. A crisis will not be affecting an organisation if the “event” is treated in a proper manner (Frandsen & Johansen, 2017). It can clearly be seen that their recommendation strongly advice for focusing on treating crisis in perfect way to reduce several impacts on the organisation or company affecting reputation. Moreover, Greenberg and Elliott (2009) argued that “crisis communication is the attempt to control information and allay negative public reaction when sudden and dramatic change occurs in an organisation’s environment that tarnishes its reputation and compromises its operational autonomy”.

In terms of social media as platform for organisations to spread information and innovation, Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden (2011) highlight social media as an important networking technology that nowadays has been used in marketing. With social media and web 2.0 such as twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, marketers can easily spread information including text and images to stay connected with public. Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden’s argument is aligned with writer opinion that social media can be useful in marketing. Nowadays, everybody uses social media to interact with each other and networking around the world. This report will conduct a descriptive case of Qantas Airlines in terms of crisis in social media and aims to demonstrate process of handling crisis from the crisis management point of view.

DISCUSSION OF ACTORS, CONTEXT, RESPONSE

In 2011, Qantas Airlines, which is one of Australia’s largest airlines by fleet size, by international flights and international destinations, was facing a crisis during a social media campaign which was aiming for encouraging people to post about their dream of luxury inflight experience on twitter. Qantas Airlines formatted a hashtag in twitter #QantasLuxuryas a twitter competition and the prize was a gift pack of Qantas pyjamas and a toiletries kit. In an hour, the controversy of the twitter hashtag became a trending topic around Australia due to users responding to #QantasLuxury posted with negative thoughts. Within a day, there was not only a fake account in Twitter named Qantas Luxury which had been released by unknown Twitter user, but also a video parody in YouTube shows that Qantas Airline as object of ridicule (Alexander Baldwin, 2011). These things might be affecting the reputation of Qantas Airline. The campaign via Twitter actually is often used by several big companies to gain more attention from public however; Gonzalez-Herrero & Smith (as cited in Ford, 2013) claim that “social media can act as a trigger. That is, social media itself could cause a crisis, often ignited by rumours, hacking, shadow or copy-cat web-sites, web security breaks, and all forms of cyber-terrorism”. With the point of trigger, it strongly shows that social media must be treated properly to avoid reputation harm. If the company has low attention on management strategy in social media, the possibility of crisis might be higher.

The crisis of the tweet competition faced by Qantas Airlines can be seen as lack of public relation management because the airline was grounded a week before the twitter case. The lack of pro-active response through social media caused chaos and made everything worse after the tweet posted (The Real-time Report, 2011). The grounding made the twitter crisis situation worse. This case strongly related in terms of social context which make public under emotion and less trust to Qantas Airlines. Qantas Airlines didn’t try to fix the issues of grounding, for the reason makes passengers assume that the failed campaign is the best time to fight Qantas.

Qantas Airlines was fully in charge during the crisis even though public might be thinking that the PR of Qantas Airlines was still not enough to handle the chaos. To shutting down the communication is not necessarily needed because while the company chose to shut down all connection of communication, it probably meant the public attacked more than before and the company was facing a worse situation; however, the tipping point from this case cannot clearly be proven due to the PR still facing and encouraging people to understand the crisis. Lisa Barone (2009) in outspokenmedia.com stated that response was the best way to solve the crisis, it meant that the situation was handled properly which is face and solve it. In the case of the reputation management, action with a logical way is the best way to handle the crisis.

THE CASE: QANTAS AIRLINES ACTION

Qantas Airlines pointed out several steps in a way to handle the crisis through online environment. Quick response is the first step that they took to solve the problem, Qantas Airline’s response by giving confirmation about several issues happened before the crisis occurred. A model called two-way symmetrical model by James Grunig’s (1992) within public relations fields might be helpful to tackle this case. The aim of the model is to inform the key point of the company through public and responsibility to provide accurate information (Grunig & Grunig, 1992). The scholars’ idea is very helpful to companies to focus on accurate information about the past event that caused chaos. Grunig as cited in Ford (2013) discussed about, “Fact-finding, truth, and accuracy achieved greater levels of importance” to support company action in the crisis. Without proper response from the company, public stay at the stage of unsatisfied, Qantas may have tried to deliver the information to make the situation better.

Actively listening is the next action that Qantas Airlines took for handling the crisis, the social media staff actually didn’t shut down the communication; however, Qantas Airlines gave a chance for everybody to speak up and tweet about the hashtag even the social media staff already knew that the hashtag was failed as campaign of a luxury inflight experience. Grunig (2009) suggested that traditional one-way communication should be paused for a while, because at the crisis, public are changed to be message-oriented. It is clear that public at the crisis period only need to be clearly informed and get the idea of the information from problem solvers. Other scholars Taylor & Perry as cited in Ford (2013) argued that by changing for two-way interaction with the public, it can give time for the public to be involved in the crisis.

Moreover, Qantas Airlines opened communication and tried to get involved in a conversation with users who are not satisfied with Qantas Airlines. Grunig as cited in Ford (2013) noted that the nature of communication and information is objective and truthful, the point is to give good image of the company and make all the things clear. Truth and transparency is important, company should be open for the public about what exactly the problem is, here in the context of the failed campaign of the hashtag, Qantas Airlines probably found it difficult to respond about the truth because the campaign is the concept and nobody can blame if the campaign failed. The problem is more about past situation that occurred and made passengers dissatisfied, on this point of the failed of campaign, public felt like free to find their rights. Consequently, Ward, as cited in Ford (2013) have argued that, “social media now pressures corporations to be more transparent”. Here is the focus that information through social media must be clear with transparency even for prevention of crisis or during the crisis.

LESSON FROM QANTAS AIRLINES CASE IN TERMS OF DEALING WITH NEGATIVE REACTIONS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

Be sensitive and responding to customers

Customers nowadays are very sensitive and critical with big companies which they have experience with. Not only customers but also companies thought that social media is the easy way to communicate, that is the reason why companies must be having a short research before running a campaign. Related with the Qantas Airlines case, they are not supposed to run the campaign after customers were unsatisfied by the grounded issue. Taylor and Perry as cited in ford (2013) suggest that during the crisis, interactively responding helps to get consumers’ trust in the affected organization. It means that the stance took by Qantas Airlines can save the reputation of the company. The important things were being responsive and trying to understand first public opinion even in an emergency situation.

Be aware of how social media users behave

Especially for Twitter align with the case, users’ behaviour must be counted as well in strategy of communication through social media before open communication, the reason is because the message that a company sends will be seen by everyone and they will not care about self-censorship which is giving the opportunity to users for fire back via comments. Social media staff must be careful in terms of choosing ideas to avoid crisis in the future.

CONCLUSION

Among the aims of this report was the descriptive case of Qantas Airlines in terms of response to a crisis communication in the online environment – in this case, Qantas Airlines tried to open communication between the company and public especially in twitter after the hashtag competition failed as a campaign and turned back into negative tweet attacks on Qantas. The result was Qantas Airlines took action which was actively listening to all the negative comments and trying to offer response of information to get customers’ trust. It is important that in the future, Qantas Airlines should try solving any problem which is customers un-satisfaction of first to avoid any reputation harm and crisis because the fact that the online crisis occurs due to unclear past action of Qantas Airline through services or generally called as double crisis. The company must be looking carefully as well as the post-crisis management which means that Qantas Airlines needs to make an analysis of past action during handling of the crisis to see effectiveness and create a better reputation. Finally, stages of reputation management are focusing on action to the crisis, clear information in response, transparency, and actively reviewing post-crisis.

REFERENCES

Coombs, W. T. (2007). Attribution theory as a guide for post-crisis communication research. Public Relations Review, 33(2), 135-139.

Baldwin, A. (2011). Qantas twitter dawnfall video parody. Retrieved from website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTCwPlWzZnQ

Donna Moritz, 5 Ways Qantas Shows Us That Twitter Matters. Retrieved from website: http://sociallysorted.com.au/5-ways-qantas-shows-us-that-twitter-matters/

Frandsen & Johansen (2017) Organizational Crisis Communication, Ch, 9: 'Consumers and citizens: Emotions and social media'.

Ford, T. (2013). Social media and crisis communication: Theories and best practices (Doctoral dissertation, Carleton University Ottawa).

Hanna, R., Rohm, A., & Crittenden, V. L. (2011). We’re all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem. Business horizons, 54(3), 265-273.

Friend of Frank, Lesson From #QantasLuxury hashtag. Retrieved from website: http://frankmedia.com.au/2011/11/23/lessons-from-the-qantasluxury-social-media-disaster/

Sophie Chadwick, PR Essentials: How to Deal with Bad Publicity on Social Media. Retrieved from website: https://maximizesocialbusiness.com/pr-essentials-deal-bad-publicity-social-media-23819/

The real-time report, November 2011. Retrieved from website: http://therealtimereport.com/2011/11/23/twitter-fail-qantas-strikes-out-on-social-media/