The media is like The Hunger Games, everyone loves to watch brands scramble to recover a loss or celebrate a win ! The victim of this story is a well known brand and I guess most of this article readers have been there more than once…. Its the nice calm view on the banks of the Nile inside the Sequoia complex, The Left Bank.
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Before your mind jump into anticipations, No it was not a bad service or, any hygiene issue. The story is simply about one of the regular customer car which have been stolen because she left the keys with the valet. There just doesn’t seem to be enough information about how the car was stolen however, reportedly they provided a blurry photo of the thief and no enough actions taken yet except this PR statement !
Its nice to keep your fans and customers informed with updates, But remember that 7hrs on Social Media is more than enough to find your self in the middle of crisis in the non-controllable digital world ! An insightful look for Social analytics on Twitter, you can simply capture this massive mentions of The Left Bank Twitter handler which jumped from zero on 8th of September to 791 Tweets mentions on 9th of September. Ironically the last tweet from The Left Bank was published on 24 August !
So yes everyone, my car was stolen yesterday morning from @LeftBankonline
— Yasmin (@Jasminologic) September 9, 2014
Dear followers don’t go with your car to left bank @LeftBankonline in Zamalek as @Jasminologic ‘s car was stolen yesterday … #Boycott
— Love Life &Smile (@loveLife_Smile) September 9, 2014
عربيه @Jasminologic اتسرقت امبارح من Valet @leftbankonline و كل اللي خايفين عليه سمعتهم!! قاطع المكان عشان ممكن تتحط في نفس الموقف ده
— Dina Nasser (@DinaNasser) September 9, 2014
So, @LeftBankonline, your valet people have known @Jasminologic by name for years now & they still gave her car to someone they don’t know!
— Nahla Sharara (@NtheSpark) September 9, 2014
A girl I follow on here, @Jasminologic , apparently had her car stolen from the @LeftBankonline valet. Watch out for your cars people..
— AbdelAziz Hussein (@AbdelAzizH) September 9, 2014
Without one single tweet from The Left Bank which reflects lack of communications plan, a big buzz created on this fast Social Media and some efforts should have been invested to calcify the issue and keep your followers in the loop.
Words or, Actions ?
A Lesson learned from Pepsi Max here would provide some inspiration to neutralize a brand reputation crisis where zero words said to defend the brand reputation. It was tactical ACTIONS which successfully delivered the message. When Pepsi Max accused to fake a video Ad, Jeff Gordon take the reporter for wild revenge ride to prove Pepsi Ad producers point and make the reporter himself live the same experience !
Lesson learned here is: PR statement/s shouldn’t be your first choice of solutions to handle Social Media crisis. Two lines PR statement on your Facebook page is cliche response simply because sometimes words are not enough !
