Customers help to hold corporations accountable

NEW YORK — Look out, Corporate America. Customers armed with smartphones and video cameras are watching when you screw up.

The viral video of a ticketed passenger dragged forcefully off a United flight is only the latest example of bad behavior exposed in the age of social media.

In February, Uber came under fire after a driver posted video of CEO Travis Kalanick berating him. Earlier, a Comcast technician was shown in a video sleeping on a customer’s couch, and an audio recording chronicled one man’s herculean efforts to drop Comcast service; they are among the embarrassing customer complaints that ultimately forced improvements . FedEx had to respond after video showed a driver carelessly throwing a package with a computer monitor over the front gate. Beyond the corporate sphere, smartphone videos of police brutality have prompted protests and investigations.

Not long ago, such incidents might have gotten a mention on the local news at most, and quickly

disappeared. But smartphone cameras and social media have democratized information and shifted power to consumers. Companies can no longer sweep complaints under the rug.

“That’s something a lot of companies just don’t get,” said Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communications at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. “Companies still operate as if they can hide things and make believe something didn’t happen.”

Companies can’t eliminate embarrassing

gaffes entirely, but can learn from past blunders to minimize the damage.

It starts with training. Employees need to be ready to react when a situation gets dramatic — and companies should emphasize that anything employees do could be recorded. That’s especially true for transportation, fast-food and other companies with a lot of employees who interact directly with large numbers of customers.

Running through hypothetical scenarios helps.

“Have a couple things planned, what we should do if ‘x’ happens and what we should do if ‘y’ happens,”

said Lakshman Krishnamurthi, a Kellogg School of Management marketing professor.

On-site employees need to be given more power to respond to avoid escalating an incident, especially one that might be recorded. In United’s case, for instance, even if employees were following the rules for seeking volunteers to give up seats, they should have been able to read the situation and increase the financial incentives for volunteers rather than drag a passenger off a flight.

“You need rules, but you need to be flexible and adapt,” Argenti said.