Servant of Chaos

Awarding #QantasLuxury with a Downfall

Customer loyalty programs are funny things. They often walk a fine line between promise and flattery, between exclusivity and exploitation. These programs are laced with words and imagery that reinforce the sense of entitlement, achievement and reference “awards” and benefits.

But in a socially connected world, awards, entitlement and even exclusivity can be turned on its head. Right now, Qantas is at the heart of this new brand experience.

A few days ago I wrote What Qantas Will Learn from its Social Customers. There were five key lessons:

• The social customer is ubiquitous: it’s not just Facebook or Twitter. They write blogs, publish stories and photographs. They share these with hundreds – if not thousands – of friends with the click of a mouse and a glare of disdain
• The social customer wields influence with a swagger: they have grown up with the internet and have more tools at their disposal than you let through your firewall. They move fast and do so with intent. If they can impact the decisions of others (to not purchase with you) they will do so.
• The social customer is not your friend: they don’t want a platitude and they won’t go quietly. They will remember your words and your actions and they will choose their purchases carefully and with deliberation.
• The social customer is the 99%: they can smell inequity at a hundred paces. You’ve just given them a reason to chose another brand who understands their lifestyle and their priorities.
• The social customer is developing a social conscience: it’s taken decades, but it is forming. Just take a look at the Edelman Trust Barometer. Brands will be judged by their actions.

But things have progressed, and by “progressed” I mean “become worse”. Yesterday’s promotional efforts using Twitter and the #qantasluxury hashtag have been widely regarded as a failure or PR disaster. But I think it goes deeper than that. It’s a malaise that goes to the very heart of the brand and the disconnect between Qantas the brand and its customers.

You see, social media can become damaging to your brand when you ignore the real messages of social media – the wide cultural and personal transformations that I call The Social Way. Without understanding and translating these into your business the gulf between your brand and your customers will continue to widen. If Qantas (or their advising agencies) had understood, for example, the Five Stages of Social Media Grief and had applied this to understanding their customers, then perhaps, #qantasluxury could have been a completely different campaign.

What we are seeing is a widespread “falling out of love” with the Qantas brand. And with this comes a sense of loss. Grief. The Australian public and travellers, in particular, are having to come to grips with a changed reality – where the relationship and trust that they once had in the Qantas brand has evaporated through purposeful direct action of the Qantas management and Board.

And when the audience, formerly known as “Qantas Customers” have not yet moved into the “acceptance” phase of the grieving process, any brand activations must be carefully considered, planned and executed.

The Twitter stream of conversation (as shown above) seems to be still accelerating and now #qantasluxury appears to have been awarded the ultimate social media honour – the production of its very own Downfall spoof (see Parodies in this Wikipedia entry). When your customers go to the trouble of producing media like this, it’s the equivalent of entering the social customer hall of shame. It’s not an award that Qantas would like, I am sure, but I have a feeling there is still a way to go before this peters out.

When Your Twitter Campaign Goes South - #qantasluxury Ditches

Today, Qantas launched a Twitter-based competition. Perhaps underestimating how much damage has been done to the brand in the wake of the recent lockout of its workers, the vocal Twitter community hijacked the campaign and have been busily reminding Qantas management (and Board) just what negative brand sentiment can translate into. Clearly, Qantas has not learned from their social customers.

But what does it look like when this happens? How is it expressed? 

Tiphereth Gloria has done a great job monitoring the situation and pulling out a number of key tweets across the day. Using Storify, Tip shares and amplifies some of the most salient points.

We used to say that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. But does this apply in a world where personal recommendation trumps brand allegiance? It seems that this Qantas saga has some way to run - with Fair Work Australia now required to produce a binding outcome which could still take months. And the question on many customers minds has to be - who at Qantas has their eye on the safety, customer experience and  brand value of the business? Clearly not the Board or the CEO.

What Qantas Will Learn from its Social Customers

Or an alternative title: What Qantas Will Learn from its Former Customers Because they are Social

I can still remember the smell of the lithographic duplicator machines that were used in my primary school. The light purple writing would hold that odour long after the ink dried. And one day – I think it was in 5th class – I remember learning about the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service. What today we call Qantas.

Back then – in the 1970s – school children would learn about Qantas as part of the school curriculum. We would read the teacher’s notes and then write neatly formed sentences into our brown paper covered school books. I dutifully etched red and brown pencil lines into my book, showing the shop and the sign over the Qantas booking office in Longreach. I was proud. I’d done a good job. And with every stroke of the pencil, I was also marking this brand deep into my psyche.

But over the weekend I watched the Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce – with the full support of his Board – trash one of Australia’s most loved brands. In grounding the entire domestic and international fleet, Joyce threw the travel and business plans of thousands into chaos – and those passengers reacted by tweeting in record numbers.

A usually quiet social brand, mentions of Qantas spiked on Saturday as the news of the groundings spread around the globe. The graph from Trendistic, when extended back 30, 90 and 180 days barely rises off the base line. And while mentions tailed off on Sunday and earlier today, mentions of the name Qantas are still ranking well beyond its normal zone. Jenni Beattie from Digital Democracy tracked the Qantas conversations across a number of other social platforms – from a Facebook protest page to off-brand forums like Golf and Vogue Fashion.

CEO Alan Joyce doesn’t appear concerned, stating in the Wall Street Journal “I think the Qantas brand is an amazingly resilient brand and we've gone through very significant industrial disputes before”. But for the Australian public, this wasn’t a matter of industrial relations – it was a matter of national pride. The actions of Joyce and the Board severed a bond of trust.

Now, much has changed since the 70s. OK – maybe not the trade unions that Joyce is arguing with. But the ticket buying, holiday making, business travelling customer that contributes to Qantas’ record breaking profits is a whole different beast. These are “social customers” and they are different. And brands – even brands as big as Qantas - no longer operate in isolation.

Essentially, your customers pwn your brand – and if they can’t, they go to where they can. This is especially the case with emotionally charged brands (and travel/holiday related brands certainly are). In the days and weeks ahead, Qantas will learn more about the social customer, including:

• The social customer is ubiquitous: it’s not just Facebook or Twitter. They write blogs, publish stories and photographs. They share these with hundreds – if not thousands – of friends with the click of a mouse and a glare of disdain
• The social customer wields influence with a swagger: they have grown up with the internet and have more tools at their disposal than you let through your firewall. They move fast and do so with intent. If they can impact the decisions of others (to not purchase with you) they will do so.
• The social customer is not your friend: they don’t want a platitude and they won’t go quietly. They will remember your words and your actions and they will choose their purchases carefully and with deliberation.
• The social customer is the 99%: they can smell inequity at a hundred paces. You’ve just given them a reason to chose another brand who understands their lifestyle and their priorities.
• The social customer is developing a social conscience: it’s taken decades, but it is forming. Just take a look at the Edelman Trust Barometer. Brands will be judged by their actions.

What impact will this have? Here are some thoughts:

• Long term brand value is impacted, causing re-evaluation of the Qantas credit rating
• Fed up customers move to other carriers such as Virgin – impacting short term and mid term advanced bookings
• New customers, aware of the disruption, steer away from Qantas towards competitors – or avoid Australian destinations altogether
• The angriest of travellers contact their superannuation fund managers to remove Qantas from their super portfolios
• Companies, reliant on travel, strengthen relationships with Qantas competitors

What else? Is there another impact coming? What else do you see?

Five Reasons NOT to Renovate Your Bathroom with Harvey Norman

When I worked at IBM, I often heard the quote, “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”. I loved this as an idea – and still do. It neatly encompasses the robust, trustworthy status of the big blue brand. It provides customers with the promise that while the price may come at a premium, that delivery will be flawless; and it provides employees with a rallying point, something to live up to. And in my years with IBM, I saw this promise fulfilled by teams of talented people. Not only were these people experts in their field, sometimes they came close to genius.

Recently, I went through the exercise of having my bathroom renovated. Now, I like to build things in my shed, but I am far from professional. I was more than happy to turn this over to professionals. Sure it will cost, but I wanted the expertise and experience. I didn’t expect a genius, but I did expect flawless execution. I did expect them to deliver a superior customer experience.

This did not happen.

So if you are in the market for a bathroom renovation and are considering Harvey Norman Renovations, then closely read these five reasons NOT to renovate your bathroom with Harvey Norman:

1. The sparkle ends when the contract is signed. Our designer was great. He guided us through the myriad choices and budget options. Nothing was a problem and his suggestions really did help. But once the contract is signed, you are in a whole other world. The charismatic designer is replaced by the grumpy, uncommunicative subcontractor who invades your house and sets up camp. There will be problems and a million reasons why something cannot be done – or done well. You’re in for an argument every day.
2. Sales bait and switch. The designer will sell you a vision for your new bathroom. That’s the one that you sign up for. But the reality is quite different. Take a look at the table below to see the silver words and an explanation of what they mean.
3. The design is the blueprint, unless it’s too much work for the contractor. If you’re like me, you will be relying on the expertise of “Harvey Norman” to complete your bathroom to the best of their abilities. You’ll be expecting them to work to the agreed design and promise. But there will be many things that just seem to be “not possible”. Where something is “not in the design” it will be classed as a “variation”, but where the design appears to involve substantial effort, work arounds will be the order of the day. Note, while Harvey Norman variations will cost you extra, your variations do not result in a discount. It’s amazing what can actually be done if you push hard enough, but then again, it’s another argument that you have to have. 
4. The site supervisor is non-existent. When something doesn’t go to plan, who do you speak with? When you want to check or validate the work of the contractor, who do you turn to? As explained above, I’m not a building professional. I rely entirely on the expertise, experience and goodwill of what I thought was Harvey Norman. Our “site supervisor” was only “on site” one day – in three weeks. And then, for a grand total of about 15 minutes. The small changes, accommodations and variations accumulate each day. There’s no supervision and no second opinion on the direction your bathroom is taking.
5. Start and end dates. There is no end date in your contract, so your contractor can drag your project on as long as it takes. Our contractor would start about 11am and work on and off for a few hours before heading home for a well-earned rest. As to start dates – we weren’t even scheduled to start with the contractor – the paperwork had to be “found” and the work had to be scheduled – but only after a series of phone calls that got us all off to a bad start. What were we thinking? We’d only given them TWO MONTHS NOTICE to start.

Table of Harvey Norman Renovation promises and what they really mean

Promise	What it means
“We do everything but the painting”	If you can badger the contractor enough to actually do his job, you might have walls that will only need a couple of days sanding before you can paint them.
“We strip out everything and you’ll get a completely new bathroom”	We will replace the wall below 1200mm which will be covered with tiles anyway, but above that you’ll still have the same old gyprock you thought you were getting rid of.
“Patch and make good”	Actually replacing gyprock and cornices is not part of our deal – even if we have to smash it to fit. We’ll cover it up with a dash of plaster and hope we can make it look at least half as good as it was before we got here.

So – how did it all turn out? I’ll let you know when it is actually finished. In the meantime, I will write up some tips for “getting what was expected from Harvey Norman Renovations” – and even share some of the work in progress pictures.

Note: the image above is from Flickr. It’s not my bathroom.

UPDATE: Kudos to the Harvey Norman social media team who contacted me via LinkedIn. Good to see. Here's hoping that this leads to others having a better renovation experience.