Lessons shared from a real-live social media crisis

Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

DANIA HAM O DUMPresented by:

President of Melissa Agens Crisis ManagementMelissa Agens

Preview 1. Company Profile.2. Analysis: what happened? 3. What are the mistakes that have been committed?4. What was the official response from Le Massif?5. Long term consequences.6. Learning from mistakes.7. Smart moves.

3Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Le Massif de Charlevoix: company profile 1

4Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Le Massif de Charlevoix: company profile

Le Massif de Charlevoix is a major tourist attraction in Quebec, Canada. that unfurls over three environments in the Charlevoix: The Mountain, the Farm and the Train.

People from all over the province, and the world, vacation there year-round. They have the highest mountains East of the Rockies, which makes their main attraction during the snow months their ski resort.

5Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Le Massif de Charlevoix: company profile

Le Massif de Charlevoix: The Montain

6Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Le Massif de Charlevoix: company profile

Le Massif de Charlevoix: The Train

7Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Le Massif de Charlevoix: company profile

Le Massif de Charlevoix: Hôtel La ferme

8Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Analysis: what happened? 2

9Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Analysis: what happened?

The winter of 2011 was a slow winter for the hill. Even though Le Massif usually gets the most snow in the province of Quebec, 2011 had been particularly light on snow and therefore poor for skiers.

2011: Slow winter for the hill

Towards the end of the first week in March, the weather reports were announcing a major storm brewing that would be arriving that Saturday night.

Storm forecasts

10Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Analysis: what happened?

That Saturday March 5th, although the snow was falling generously, the weather was mild, and the forecast was warning that it may change to a minor ice storm over night.

The performance of the Storm

11Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Analysis: what happened?

From an operational standpoint, in these circumstances, the hill usually keeps the chairlifts running throughout the night so that they don’t crust over with ice, rendering them un-operational.

Chairlifts should remain running throughout the night

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What are the mistakes that have been committed?3

13Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

What are the mistakes that have been committed?

That evening, the director of operations, who was new to the company, decided that the storm wouldn’t be too big, so they weren’t going to have staff work throughout the night to keep the chairlifts running.

Chairlifts stalled all-night

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What are the mistakes that have been committed?

The hill was covered with 50 to 60 cm of perfect powder snow, the skiers and snowboarders were arriving, and sure enough, Sunday morning, the chairlifts were not operational.

Night storm disrupted the lifts

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What are the mistakes that have been committed?

The general manager wasn’t there that day, and even though the staff had been trained and empowered to update the website, they had failed to do so.

This meant that for those who were checking the website before packing their cars and making the long trip up to the mountain, the website was telling them that the mountain was in perfect ski condition - 6 chairs working out of 6, 52 runs open out of 52.

Company website misled the customers

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What are the mistakes that have been committed?

Unprepared for a communications crisis

The many disappointed customers took to Le Massif’s Facebook wall to voice their discontent with the mountain and the way they were handling the situation.

As much as Le Massif was prepared on an operational standpoint to handle a crisis, they unfortunately were unprepared for a crisis on the communications side of things.

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What are the mistakes that have been committed?

So as the social media attacks began, they had no crisis management strategy in place to deal with a communications crisis of this magnitude

Within a span of just a few hours, Le Massif’s Facebook wall was flooded with approximately 125 negative comments.

Failure to respond to the social media attack

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What are the mistakes that have been committed?

Under the pressure of the attacks, the community manager was forced to take a spontaneous decision.

He decided to write a generic message template and have the staff use it as a response strategy to respond to the negative comments flooding in on their Facebook wall. That is the message:

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Template answer to the negative comments

What are the mistakes that have been committed?

20Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

What are the mistakes that have been committed?

Translated, the message went along the lines of:

We have taken into account your comment. So that a response is provided to you and follow-up done so, thank you to forward the request directly to sac@lemassif.com

The Management Team

21Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

What are the mistakes that have been committed?

The already angry customers considered this to be a mechanical and impersonal response, instantly branding it as a fail. This did not help their cause.

22Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Customer reaction to this response

What are the mistakes that have been committed?

Lack of internal communicationAnother mistake Le Massif innocently made, was not choosing to share all of the information they had with their staff. Because of their lack of internal communication, the staff misconstrued the situation, believing that the whole episode happened because management didn’t care, and was looking to save money by not keeping the chairlifts going throughout the night.

23Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

What are the mistakes that have been committed?

More than half way through the day, management finally posted a comment on their Facebook wall saying that due to weather conditions, chairlifts were malfunctioning. This was in part true, but was hiding some truths as well, not being completely transparent and honest.

24Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Not being completely transparent and honest.

Official response4

25Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

“The power of an apology we realized it, and we also realized that it should have come earlier.”

Frederic Gonzalo–

Official response - better late than never

It took the mountain until Monday morning to finally own up to their mistake and release a formal apology to their Facebook wall.

Management released a formal apology

Once they did this, their customers understood that it was a simple human error, forgave them and started flooding their wall with positive messages that drowned out the remaining negative ones.

Customers understood and forgave

26Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Official response - better late than never

From the moment they released this truthful and sincere apology, that was it, the crisis was gone! Their fans came to their defense and forgave them for the innocent mistake.

From Crisis to Recovery

CRISIS

27Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

5 Long term consequences

Le Massif was lucky that they calmed the crisis when they did, because they managed to not suffer too many long-term damages to their brand or reputation.

They did receive some emails from customers saying that they would not be renewing their season passes the following year, but only a very minimal few.

28Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

No substantial long-term damages to the brand or reputation

Learning from their mistakes5

29Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Learning from their mistakes

Mistake 1: Failing to update the website

Mistake 2: A template answer to the negative comments

Mistake 3: Not being open and honest with their staff

Mistake 4: Not being forthcoming or completely honest

Mistake 5: Waiting so long to apologize and come clean

30Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Smart moves

Amongst their mistakes and lack of being prepared, Le Massif did manage to make some very smart moves. Let’s take a look.

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31Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Smart moves

Smart move 2: They did not delete any of the negative comments

Although there were two or three comments that needed to be deleted due to their extreme level of profanity, no other comments or negative remarks were deleted from their Facebook wall. This was a smart move on Le Massif’s part.

33Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Smart move 3: They released an official response

Although it may have taken them a little longer to do, they released an official response that addressed the situation, admitted to their mistake and sincerely apologized to their customers. The fact that this small gesture seised the attacks almost instantly proves how vital this action within a social media crisis plan truly is.

Smart moves

34Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

LESSONS LE MASSIF LEARNED FROM THEIR EXPERIENCE

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36Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Frederic acted as Vice-President, Marketing at Le Massif between October 2008 and November 2011, where he spearheaded Marketing, Sales & Communications. As of November 2011, he is a freelancer in tourism marketing, mobile & loyalty fields where he offers services in strategic planning, branding, sponsorship and social media expertise.

Let’s find out what lessons Le Massif learned from their experience, and what advice Frederic Gonzalo has to share with you.

37Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Q: What did Le Massif learn from this crisis?

A: They learned that Facebook is a customer service channel.

Following the crisis, in April of last year, Frederic Gonzalo was able to work on the social media policies for their employees, and a crisis management plan for the event that something like this should happen again.

“...That’s what they learned from the situation, and they’ve, in theory, improved their reaction plan.”

lessons Le Massif learnedfrom their experience

38Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

Q: What did you personally learn from the situation?

It is imperative to train and empower people for them to be enabled to handle a social media crisis, and know what is expected of them. And that’s what we did after the fact.

That’s why we put the policy in place, and we put the guidelines for future crises.

A: The need to train staff to handle a social media crisis

lessons Le Massif learnedfrom their experience

39Le Massif and the social media crisis they faced

lessons Le Massif learnedfrom their experience

Q: What advice would you give to other companies regarding a social media crisis?

A: “I think the first most important advice is that an online media crisis is no different than a media crisis - then any crisis basically. It’s a crisis!

So, basically, you should have some kind of plan and scenarios to look at the different crises that could happen. Even though it’s hypotheses, make twenty or thirty different hypotheses about what could happen.

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lessons Le Massif learnedfrom their experience

So first of all, you should have a crisis management plan in place,

and second of all, it should be adapted to the social media environment, where things spread a lot faster.

After that, I think it’s really just that you have to operate and provide quality customer service to your clients and you’ll be less prone to have a crisis.