Now that the Southwest/Kevin Smith has calmed down a little, I want to take a minute to discuss how Southwest handled it, which was superbly.
Let’s look at some core principles of social media and how they played into the Southwest/Silent Bob Showdown of 2010.
Transparency
Could this situation be any more transparent? (If you’re a Friends fan, I just channeled Chandler for a moment.) When facing an unhappy customer, especially a public figure, the last thing you want is for the negative experience to be broadcast to their circle of influence. Ideally, you can handle the problem when it occurs and avoid any backlash. Southwest certainly didn’t get that ideal situation. Instead, a famous director/actor got the full attention of the public and the media about what he deemed Southwest’s “size-ist” policies. A customer relations conversation between Southwest and Kevin Smith was 100% transparent for the world to see.
Authenticity
Southwest’s apology is one to be remembered. It was handled gracefully without sacrificing their stance on overweight customers. They acknowledged and apologized for publicly calling out Kevin Smith on his flight, but they didn’t apologize for the underlying principle. They reminded the public that their pilots have to do what they think is the safest. It would have been easy to suck up to the man with over a million Twitter followers and requests to tell his story on Good Morning America, but Southwest admitted what they did wrong and defended what they did right.
Personality
I’m not sure if it was Christie Day or Brandy King that logged on to Southwest’s Twitter account to find a mess of a situation, but the woman that handled it came across as a real, endearing person. She even found humor in the situation when one Twitter follower tweeted that she would hate to be the Southwest Twitter person that night. Southwest’s response:
“No, you should hate to be the Southwest Twitter person’s boyfriend : ) It’ll be ok though.”
Another Southwest follower encouraged her to
“Relax, I’m sure the Kevin Smith thing is either A) a gimmick or B) something you will look back at and just laugh about.”
To that Southwest’s Twitter-er responded with the mantra that would soon describe the situation,
“Unfortunately…. This is the real deal. Silent Bob is striking back.”
The theme continued as the title for Southwest’s blog post on the situation read “Not So Silent Bob.”
The situation ended when a CNN poll showed 58% of the public sided with Southwest over Kevin Smith. Smith announced that was his signal to end his Twitter campaign against Southwest. While the CNN poll isn’t an overwhelming majority for Southwest, it does speak volumes to how well Southwest turned a potential PR disaster into a success story.