February 23, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Charities can learn quite a bit about how to respond to a public-relations crisis from the recent debacle involving JetBlue Airlines, says Nancy E. Schwartz, a nonprofit marketing consultant, in her Getting Attention blog.
During a Valentine’s Day snowstorm, JetBlue kept fliers in some of its planes for more than six hours, while the planes waited for takeoff.
It’s hardly the kind of message a company that prides itself on customer service wants to be sending.
Ms. Schwartz says JetBlue needed to handle the crisis much better to win back the support of customers and beat back the negative press it has generated.
The company did the right thing by accepting responsibility, posting a “Customer Bill of Rights” on its Web site, and having its chief executive deliver a video message via YouTube, she says.
But Ms. Schwartz also contends that the company did not do enough. JetBlue, for example, waited too long to run full-page apology ads in major newspapers. It also erred by not enlisting its happy customers to speak on its behalf, and it has not fully apologized on its Web site.
“When you do something very wrong, you have to do a lot — completely right — to make it even a bit better,” Ms. Schwartz writes. “JetBlue needs to execute the best in crisis communications, and that’s not happening.”
Nonprofit groups, she says, should pay close attention to JetBlue’s example and develop crisis communications strategies in advance. Such planning can help a nonprofit group act appropriately if a crisis does emerge.
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