It’s hard to estimate the damage done to United Airline’s brand from yesterday’s “incident” on one of its flights from Chicago.  (I’m tempted to describe it in more Draconian terms but there’s more than enough social media for that.)  First, there’s the proliferation of the multiple videos that have now been seen by tens of millions of Americans.  Second, that the man so violently ejected was Chinese has created a whirlwind of social media among many millions in China.  (Anyone for a flight from Beijing to LA?  I hear there are seats available.)  Finally, for today at least, is the tone-deaf response of United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz in which his use of the non-word, “re-accommodate” is getting its own share of Internet derisiveness.  Wow!  What a mess!

If you think this will all pass, consider this:  Today’s drop in United stock has already cost the airline about $600 million.  What a waste of brand equity!  So, let’s assume Mr. Munoz calls you up and asks, “What should we do?”  We can expect the usual mea culpas, compensations to people on that flight and perhaps some people will lose their jobs.  But that won’t stem the long-term damage so here’s a proactive plan to retrieve that lost brand equity.

1. Send an email to all your customers worldwide. Apologize, but do more than that.  Ask them to answer a few questions that will help you ensure not only that this never takes place again but show United how it can improve its service to all its customers.  As to what questions should be asked, here are a few:

•  How did hearing about or viewing the incident make you feel?

•  How do you think an overbooked situation should be handled?

•  What is the most frustrating thing about flying from purchasing tickets to arriving at your destination?

•  How has this incident effected your willingness to recommend United to others?

Just those four questions – that’s all you need to ask.  They’re all that anybody cares about so don’t muck it up with marketing speak or other meaningless questions.

They are open-ended questions and they should remain that way because people will see that you really are interested in their opinions.  Yes, responses to open-ended questions can be difficult to analyze but don’t worry we have a solution (albeit self-serving) for you there.

2. Send every person who answers those questions a thank-you email.

3. Analyze the responses and create needs-based segmentations from the feelings and frustrations that are expressed. While you’re at it, create a lexicon of words that respondents used.  (Here’s the self-serving part.)  Oomiji can do all that.

4. Create a separate response for each major segment. Compose an email of what you heard, what you learned and that you’ll respond to them again in a few weeks with all the changes you’ll make.  (Oomiji can do that for you too because we append every single sentence to their email address.)

5. Make some real changes that help solve all the problems you learned about. By asking open-ended questions, you’ll hear some things you didn’t expect.  We’ve found that’s true for every client we’ve ever worked for.

6. Write the respondents again and let them know the changes you’re making. Send each segment all the changes but put the ones most meaningful to them at the top.

7. In a couple of months, ask them if they’ve seen any changes and their responses. Thank them again.  You might even reward them because ultimately, it’s the answer to the last question above about their willingness to recommend United that counts.

8. Repeat this process regularly and make sure you dispense with corporate speak and open yourselves up to active listening, acknowledging and responding. That’s the Oomiji pattern and it works.

Will this get United’s $600 million back?  We believe it will and they’ll reap the bonus of creating a better airline at the same time.

You can learn more about Oomiji at oomiji.com or watch our intro video here.

Tags: Americans, Assumptions, brand equity, Corporate Myopia, Customers, dragging passenger, Leadership, Marketing, Mistakes, Oomiji, open-ended research, Oscar Munoz, Outcomes, Situation Analysis, Social Media, U.S. Marketplace, United Airlines, United CEO

This is the fourth installment in a series on Mistakes Countries Make and How They Can Get It Right.

There are consultants out there who advise foreign governments to make everything they do perfect for their target markets.  They go internal to focus on changing policy, strategy, innovation and investment over a very long period of time.  The result is that governments invest their time on getting their house in order and the problem with that is that the people walking by the house have no idea what’s going on inside.  It’s simply not a case of building the perfect country so that all the investors come running.

There’s no question that real change only takes place when countries change what they do, not just what they say.  But in our marketing driven world, it’s not enough to simply make those changes and expect the world to notice.  In the 90’s we ran national image development campaigns in the U.S. for both Norway and Chile and saw ample evidence that perceptions were changed through use of marketing tools that often are used for common everyday products.

Marketing tools play a key role as long as they represent changes that are real.  Years ago, Michael Porter wrote that strategy is only valid if it represents real operations.  In other words, you can’t sell the store without knowing the goods are on the shelves.

Countries can change policy, strategy, innovation and investment over a very long period but if no one knows about it, export development and FDI will come at a much slower pace than if there is a coordinated marketing campaign that represents the real situation.

Over the years, we’ve done a considerable amount of country positioning work (our preferred term) and continue to do so today. We’ve found governments often make three major mistakes when considering their image or brand abroad:

1. Too many internal assumptions about what foreign markets think and want. For example, New Yorkers will often talk about garbage in the streets while foreigners exalt the skyline, energy of the city and multiple entertainment options. When Americans return from Chile, they can’t stop talking about the beauty of the Andes and the perfect manners of the people who live there.  Chileans on the other hand will talk about smoggy days and can be quite self-critical.  It’s human nature.  We see things in the mirror everyday that others around us see differently.  Countries have to adjust their marketing by what others think.  Effective strategy is found at the intersection of internal capabilities and external needs.
2. Failure to conduct sufficient open-ended research to determine what’s really on people’s minds in other countries. It’s not difficult to give thousands of people closed-ended questions with multiple choice responses or agreement scales and then make our own interpretations based on internal assumptions. The problem is that closed-ended questions create bias because they predefine the range of answers.  As to agreement scales, what’s the difference between one person’s 3 and another’s 4 and why?  Nobody knows but everybody has an opinion.  Real perceptions come by asking open-ended questions that begin with “What”, “Why” and “How”.  Effective positioning campaigns cannot be conducted without knowing what people really think on an unaided basis.
3. Perfect the model before showing it to the public. There is a lot in this blog about this for good reason.  Too many countries invest too much money into defining what they are before going out to the market.  What they often find is that the market has changed and their perfected “image” model is no longer relevant.  It’s better to move earlier into the market and get feed back on what you’re doing and saying so that you can adjust as you go. Today’s online marketing tools enable incredible capabilities to gather communities of interest and shared needs that will provide feedback and become brand advocates.  Nation marketing is now about building relationships through communities, both those that are publicly available and private ones too.

Change has to be real and long-term but I don’t know of any entity, that after instituting real change, didn’t benefit from a well-conceived marketing plan.

Tags: Assumptions, Change, Chile, foreign investment, Governments, Marketing, Michael Porter, Mistakes, Norway, open-ended research, Positioning, Strategy, U.S. Marketplace