![\"word](\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/word-of-mouth.jpg\" "\\"word")
<\/a>and they\u2019re melting down on the Internet where anyone can see them.<\/p>\nSo\u2026the latest celebrity tweak out involved\u00a0 Kevin Smith, a movie director who directed the indie hit \u201cClerks\u201d and the recently released \u201cCop Out\u201d. Smith, a somewhat large man, was ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight because the Captain believed his excessive weight posed a safety risk\u2026basically, the seat was too small to accommodate his girth, and there were concerns he couldn\u2019t wear a safety belt.<\/p>\n
If you ever watched the cable show \u201cAirline\u201d on A&E, you know this is a problem on airlines, and that Southwest has a specific policy for dealing with it. Well, Kevin Smith started tweeting about this experience. At first the tweets were pretty benign (Smith tweeted \u201cI know I\u2019m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?\u201d) but as the day wore on, Smith\u2019s anger with the airline escalated and his tweets became profanity-filled diatribes against Southwest.<\/p>\n
Smith tweeted more than 20 anti-Southwest tweets over the course of about three hours (including an hour flight time).<\/p>\n
Southwest did respond, and responded in a timely manner: customer service representatives called him at the number listed on his ticket (which was a home phone number, and not a cell phone, thus Smith did not get the messages during his tweak out) and the Southwest people also tweeted that Smith had a phone message waiting for him. These are all good tactics, and would appease most people.<\/p>\n
But Smith isn\u2019t most people. He tweeted that the only reason that Southwest called him was because he \u201chas a platform to express his displeasure.\u201d \u00a0And since the Tweak Out occurred, Southwest has been chastised for choosing to eject an arguably \u2018famous\u2019 person who has almost two million followers on Twitter.<\/p>\n
My point of view is that everyone has a platform to express their displeasure. It\u2019s called Word of Mouth.<\/strong> And companies need to be aware that people are using these platforms regularly.<\/p>\n Tracking and addressing the complaints, like Southwest did, is an appropriate response. Attacking Southwest for not being able to recognize \u2018celebrities\u2019 like Kevin Smith, and treat them differently than other passengers, like many other tweeters did, is just not fair.<\/p>\n And you know what? People on Twitter recognized this. After the initial round of anti-Southwest tweets, people started telling Smith to back off. Said one person, \u201cGive it a rest, I understand @Southwest was bad to you.\u201d\u00a0 And many retweeted this.<\/p>\n The lesson here is that yes, you must address negative word of mouth. When it escalates, like it did in this case, the best thing to do is repeat what you\u2019ve said and done already. Don\u2019t try to argue with someone who is off the rails\u2026you know you won\u2019t win. And keep in mind that it is likely that others will jump in to support and defend you, or at a minimum to tell the individual that he or she has made their point and is acting like a jerk.<\/p>\n Southwest addressed this situation later on their blog. Some of the new information that was provided: Smith was originally booked on a different flight where he had reserved two seats, but changed plans to get an earlier flight where two seats were not available. He received a $100 voucher in response to his distress.<\/p>\n The company reiterated their safety policy that allows Captains to remove individuals that appear to be safety risks. Also, the blog post mentioned Smith was a regular flier (and booker of two seats) on the airline: information that probably was over the top to provide but does make the point.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure this was a frustrating and embarrassing time for Southwest, but I think they did everything right. They treated Smith probably like they would treat any other customer, with the exception of probably responding more publicly to his tweak out than they would to say, me, if I complained.<\/p>\n They had a policy and they stuck to it. They responded as quickly as they possibly could, and they didn\u2019t get angry or defensive in their tweets. They let the community join in to try to calm Smith down, which worked. Great lessons for dealing with negative word of mouth.<\/p>\n – Kim<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently spoke with a group of tourism professionals about word of mouth, and the group only wanted to talk about negative word of mouth: should it be addressed, should it be ignored, what to do if one person won\u2019t stop. At about the same time, the latest celebrity Tweak out happened\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[224],"tags":[394],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}