Gasp Fail
Online reputation management lessons from #GaspFail
Someone needs to give Gasp a lesson in retail customer service and online reputation management. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the Gasp Fail saga has to be one of the most horrific examples of bad customer service in some time that has since turned into a full blown PR fiasco dubbed Gasp Fail.
In an email complaint to Gasp, bride-to-be Keara O’Neil detailed her terrible experience shopping at Gasp’s Chapel St store. Click on the thumbnail below for Keara’s initial email complaint.
But it’s the response from Gasp that has prompted a very public backlash against the brand, where they defend their employee’s horrible customer service with some ludicrous statements. Click on the thumbnail below for Gasp’s response.
Gasp Fail began as an email chain forward before spreading to social networks at an incredible rate. Gasp Fail went H1N1 viral across the social networking world, trending number one worldwide on Twitter before getting picked up by all the major newspapers and finally ending up across the nightly news. Gasp had a full-blown PR crisis on its hands.
There’s two ways Gasp could have played Gasp Fail. They could have apologised profusely and promised to rectify the situation or they could have stood in defiance and defended the position they took in their email to Keara. After their appearances all over TV in the last 24 hours, it looks like Gasp is taking the latter approach to Gasp Fail, meaning they have a serious online reputation management fight on their hands.
For years now online marketing experts like David Meerman Scott and Chris Brogan have been explaining the importance of having an online presence for your business, with Stew Art Media CEO Jim Stewart weighing in on the same topic from an SEO perspective only earlier this week. Someone really needs to clue in Gasp though, because in the aftermath of the email leak they broke the two most important rules to online reputation management and suffered dearly for it.
First off, Gasp dealt with the barrage of negativity flowing through their Facebook page by deactivating their page, effectively neutering the only social channel they had to mount a response. Gasp could have countered the negative public sentiment by explaining their position, telling their side to the story and addressing customer concerns had they kept the Facebook page alive and not been deleting negative comments since the story broke. If they wanted to be cheeky with it, they could even have advertised a Gasp sale to capitalise on the notoriety they were receiving but instead Gasp missed out on an opportunity to even the scales when they went radio silent on Facebook. By not having a real-time social oriented response, the entire Gasp Fail blew up even further for the company.
Gasp also broke the second cardinal rule of online reputation management by not being active in all possible social channels. While #GaspFail was blowing up across Twitter, Gasp didn’t even have their voice in the conversation because they didn’t even have a Twitter account. Gasp Fail is the perfect example of why you should have your brand registered on every possible social media outlet so that when an online PR crisis does hit, you’re adequately prepared to deal with it in the method it originated. Creating an account as a nightmare like Gasp Fail spirals out of control reeks of crisis management and doesn’t give you an established community to get your message out, so make sure you’re set up today.
Hitting the TV circuit to get their message across was a smart move by Gasp to reach the masses, but to quell the social storm, Gasp needs to place more effort online. Start a blog and express your ideas. Create a YouTube channel and put your own personal spin on Gasp Fail. You said your retail assistant is a “retail superstar”, show us why. Not only will creating these types of online content get your message across, it will also build your sites authority in Google as the backlinks to your content come flooding in. If there’s one good thing for your brand that will come from a PR crisis, it’s the flood of traffic and backlinks that can solidify your rankings. Take advantage of the bad situation your company is in.
It’s also important to remember that while the shelf life of social disasters is mercifully short, search isn’t so forgiving. Long after Gasp Fail has faded from the social networks, Google will continue to display content related to the incident that will drag your brand through the mud each and every time someone searches for you. While quelling the social storm is of the upmost importance to Gasp right now, the building blocks to removing the search stain on their brand needs to begin now.
It’s still too early to see how this will all play out for Gasp, but every business needs to be ready for these kinds of crisis’s as social networking plays an increasing level of importance to how we obtain our news. In an increasingly connected world, Gasp Fail shows that your online reputation is only one small email away from being ruined.
Check out Jim’s video blog from earlier this week on Online Reputation Management to make sure you’re taking all the steps to manage your reputation online and avoid a PR disaster like Gasp Fail.
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
