Good service bolsters firms in fake-news era

The MiWay fake racist e-mail incident is an important lesson for companies on why winning the loyalty, trust and favour of customers is critical in the post-truth, digital age.

While an internal investigation, which is being verified externally, shows that a disgruntled policyholder sent the e-mail, the damage has been done — fake or not. After MiWay rejected a claim because the terms of the policy were not adhered to, the policyholder failed in an appeal to the ombudsman for shortterm insurance. But he or she certainly succeeded in punishing MiWay for the unhappy claims experience.

The policyholder crafted an e-mail, which appeared as though it had been signed off by a MiWay claims assessor and in which it is agreed that MiWay will reject 90% of claims made by black customers.

Yes, the reckless actions of this miffed policyholder could result in a defamation case coming their way, but the damage done to MiWay’s brand and reputation might cost the insurer more than litigation will recover.

Following the leak of the fake e-mail on social media, MiWay immediately faced the wrath of the Twittersphere. Customers said they had cancelled their insurance policies and encouraged others to do the same. @Lwazisto tweeted: “Have you cancelled your #MiWay insurance cover yet? Better do so if your’e [sic] black and proud. #BlackTwitter @miwayinsurance #racismmustfall”.

His tweet received 867 retweets. Tweets that questioned the veracity of the doctored e-mail, including those from reputable news outlets that had interviewed MiWay CEO Rene Otto on the matter, were retweeted a fraction of the number of times. And this despite @Lwazisto’s follower base being comparatively small.

“One of the most important things about social media is that everyday people have enormous power. Everybody is a celebrity in the digital age,” says social media lawyer Emma Sadleir.

In years gone by, if you wanted to publish an opinion, you would need to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, who would probably consider whether you had given a reasonable degree of thought to your views before printing them.

Today, you can simply pour streams of consciousness into a Facebook or Twitter post, no matter how shaky the facts.

Indeed, we are living in the post-truth era. The word was chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as its Word of the Year for 2016.

Oxford defines the word as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. That Twitter users can continue directing vitriol at MiWay over a fake e-mail is the same reason why US President Donald Trump could fire off a series of Tweets accusing former president Barack Obama of wire-tapping Trump Tower during the election, despite, said the New York Times, there being no evidence to support this claim.

So where does this leave companies? In a very difficult spot, to be sure.

The legal response, says Sadleir, takes time. The immediacy of social media means that customers expect a response within minutes, leaving little time for an investigation into the facts of the matter.

While the MiWay e-mail is an extreme example of an unhappy customer, tweets and Facebook posts naming and shaming companies for poor customer service are common and can quickly take on a life of their own.

At the same time, companies can be too quick to give in to the “digital vigilante mob”, Sadleir says.

For example, MiWay could have hastily responded that it had suspended the employee “pending an investigation”, only to discover that the e-mail was fake and the whole thing a ruse.

Either way, companies facing severe reputational damage due to social media activity, whether based on truth or lies, need to respond quickly to regain control of a narrative concerning them.

More importantly though, before it even gets to that unhappy stage, companies need to take customer service more seriously than ever before. Financial services companies in particular must ensure that, when they sell someone a policy or product, that individual understands the terms and conditions attached to the agreement.

This is not to suggest that MiWay has failed to do this.

The point is simply this: be transparent about the fine print that could lead to some or other promise not being fulfilled.

This is true for all service businesses, whether a coffee shop or an airline: do whatever is in your power to treat your customer fairly and know that the battle is almost won.