CHAPTER 13

The Concert That
Never Was

LAST NIGHT’S EVENT was billed as the biggest rock concert of the century, and Julia and her best friend couldn’t wait to attend. First, the headliners had been Julia’s favorite band since childhood, and she had never seen them live. Second, she won her tickets in a major, corporate-sponsored giveaway. Third, she traveled over two hundred miles to a major city to see this concert. It was going to be a very special night.

Except that it never happened. The concert promoter had printed special tickets just for this corporate giveaway in the sponsor’s color and logo, but unfortunately, the event facility was never told about them. So when Julia and her friend arrived for the concert, they were turned away. No amount of pleading, coaxing, or tears could persuade any of the event staff to let them in. In fact, when she finally got to speak to a manager, he threatened to have them both arrested for forging their tickets.

The next day, Julia appeared on a major morning television program describing how she and her friend were treated, and her story became part of the national news feed. You are a public relations representative for the corporation that awarded her the tickets, and have been asked by your management to contact Julia and “clean up the mess.” How would you handle this? In this chapter, we examine how to effectively handle a very public incident that your organization ultimately caused.

Talk with the Customer First

First and foremost, you need to reach out to Julia; she deserves the respect of being contacted before you respond in public. Her reactions, and her expectations, will also help frame your public response to this situation.

So how is Julia likely to react? She will probably be pretty angry; after all, she was upset enough to take her story to the media. She also was wronged at a very fundamental level: She was hoping to attend a concert by her favorite band and instead ended up being turned away and threatened with arrest. Finally, the problem was completely your fault.

This may not be an easy conversation to have, but it can follow a very clear process similar to the one outlined in Chapters 2 and 3: Lean into her criticism and acknowledge her as deeply as possible by using validation and identification. You can also help defuse her anger by asking good assessment questions, as discussed in Chapter 8. Here is a sample:

The key ingredients to this dialogue are to acknowledge everything she says, respect the legitimacy of each of her feelings, and learn as much as you can about the situation, while making no effort whatsoever at this stage to defend yourself. How long should you continue this process? Until Julia has had her say. Give her the time and space to express whatever feelings she needs to, and respond to each and every one of them.

Finally, you need to have a clear apology early in the conversation that takes full ownership of what happened, acknowledges its consequences for her, and promises to make things right. Here is an example:

Practice Creative Service Recovery

What happens next, after you have done enough acknowledgment and apologized for the situation? Usually the conversation will naturally turn to what needs to happen from here. We call this phase service recovery because it involves recovering from a service failure. Once the topic comes up, invite her to be as frank as possible:

Then listen to and validate each and every thing she asks for, even if it is outrageous. Your goal at this stage is not to rule on what you will do for her; it is for her to feel completely heard. For example, one good way to respond to unrealistic requests is the paraphrasing technique described in Chapter 3:

Does this response sound strange, especially knowing that your company would not be in a position to comply with this request, and that the band itself would be unwilling to agree? Actually, it is one of the very best things you can say, because it both hears her and uses the language of an ally—and people ultimately tend to negotiate better with someone who is being a friend.

Ultimately, you will leave this conversation with an idea of how Julia and her friend are feeling and what will be needed to make them happy. In Chapter 6, we discussed how to frame problem solving in terms of what you can do for the customer’s interests. In addition to compensating her for her tickets and her travel expenses, consider things like:

When you are trying to right a very public wrong like this, you should be prepared to overcompensate for what happened—not only to make Julia and her friend feel better about what happened, but because you are perceived by the public as a wealthy corporation that wronged an innocent girl. And because the alternative may well be an expensive and publicly damaging lawsuit. Ideally, the best solution should make everyone involved feel like they came away a winner.

Respond to the Public

You have another set of “customers” to placate besides Julia and her friend: the public at large. Because this situation has played out in the media, you will need to make a public apology, and this response may become an important part of your company’s brand image.

To the untrained observer, corporate public relations can sometimes seem like a fun-house mirror that distorts reality: Problems become “issues,” an outrage is framed as an “inconvenience,” and a big mistake can turn into a “misunderstanding.” Even worse, PR statements are frequently wrapped in a thick layer of prose about how great the company is, even when it did not act great at all. They are often rife with the kinds of triggering catchphrases we recommended avoiding in Chapter 4.

Here you must take off your PR hat and become real, authentic, and contrite. Like the apology suggested for Julia, your public response must express regret, take full ownership of the situation, and document your response to it. If this response connects with people at a personal level, it will go a long way to limit the damage to your reputation.