When the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano erupted back in April, few could have predicted that it would spark a trail of travel chaos as complex as the pronunciation of its name. Yet weeks after the initial plume of ash drifted into Northern European skies, flights are still being disrupted and headlines peppered with news of airlines suffering significant profit losses because of the crisis.
Whilst tales involving disappointed holiday-makers, stranded celebrities and ruined wedding parties made for great tabloid fodder at the height of the situation, there have also been very serious – if lesser reported – implications for business travelers. Disruption to conferences, canceled meetings and not to mention the non-refundable travel costs faced by many, will all have contributed to the already estimated cost of more than £2.15 billion to European businesses so far.
For some brands that serve the business community, the repercussions of the crisis have been huge – but for others it has proven to be a chance to flourish. Whilst business airlines, already beaten down by the recession, massive rises in fuel costs and strikes have obviously not welcomed such a large puff of smoke clouding their brand images, other B2B brands have quite literally been touched by the hand of God, with web conferencing and virtual events companies reporting healthy hikes in customer numbers as a result of the affair.
Trouble in the skies
Many major airline companies received heavy criticism in the press over a lack of communication with passengers at the crux of the crisis. As unusual as the situation was, it was not entirely unfeasible that this kind of thing could happen – yet no airline seemed to have an immediate coping mechanism in place when it came to communicating with customers.
“I don’t think anybody could put their hands up and say ‘we did a great job'” says Paul Charles, chief operating officer at Lewis PR and the former comms director at Virgin Atlantic. “This situation showed that the travel industry is highly reactive. It wasn’t proactive – it took a lot of companies three or four days to really start thinking about what they were going to do.”
Charles believes that effective use of social media was what sorted ‘the men from the boys’ when it came to communicating news to customers at the point when thousands upon thousands were stranded and demanding information. He points in particular to the use of Twitter, which he says provided a good opportunity to keep the masses informed whilst relieving pressure on ‘swamped’ call centres. British Airways, he says, used this medium reasonably well. Its Twitter page broadcasted news updates and included links to pages where stranded passengers could try and apply for alternative flights. There were also many direct responses to customer queries posted in its Twitter feed.
Charles compares this to Air France, who he says “didn’t really do anything when it came to utilising Twitter – its few Tweets during the height of the crisis generally directed customers to look at its website or to its call centres – although it did also respond directly to a few customer queries.”
Lufthansa meanwhile used its Facebook page not only to post updates (which many airlines did), but to also go one step further and converse directly with fans throughout the crisis.
In the immediate aftermath of the situation, many PR professionals agree that use of digital platforms should have formed the heart of the crisis communications strategy of all involved parties. “Traditionally, it would be acceptable to respond to a crisis within fours hours. With the emergence of social media it’s now more like four minutes,” points out Susanna Simpson, founder and managing director at Limelight PR.
Stephen Hobday, head of sales at Flybe admits that Twitter did not form part of its comms strategy during the ash cloud crisis but admits that it’s “certainly something we should be looking at in the future.”
Flybe concentrated on other forms of digital communication to update its passengers. “We communicated via the website, which we updated regularly, we [made contact with our corporate community via] various email databases and sent regular faxes via a fax bureau to travel agents throughout the days of the disruption.” The carrier also focused on achieving positive PR – with its volcanic ash insurance policy offer featuring in numerous trade press titles.
Lessons to learn
The general consensus amongst comms professionals is that the ash cloud crisis has established a learning curve for airlines, and that the focus now needs to be on what has been learned and what can be improved upon – especially given that the latest reports warn of continued disruption over the summer months. “Everyone understands that this is an act of God, and on the whole most people are understanding,” says John Lawson, director at AYMTM.
“The biggest problem [at the height of the crisis] was the confusion and misinformation coming from the authorities – the authorities, airlines and experts need to talk more and much more research needs to be done into this so that we are better prepared for the future.” For the airlines, as for any company that may one day face an emergency situation, this means having a basic crisis communications strategy in place. “Use all channels, point people to where the most information is, keep it updated and make sure the site can take the strain. Social media will not take the place of your dedicated customer service channels for such a large issue [as the ash cloud crisis], but can supplement it and point people to the best places” advises Rachel Clarke, head of social media at Twentysix. Clarke offers a four-step plan for forming a crisis communications strategy (see right).
It isn’t just the airlines that encountered negative PR. Eurostar (which according to Experian was the top non-aviation travel search term during the first week of the crisis) found itself vilified in the national press for trying to ‘make a quick buck’ out of the situation by hiking prices for much sought after tickets. “Some companies, including Eurostar, missed a trick here – brands are damaged if they try to take too much advantage of a situation where people are in difficulty” warns Charles.
A silver lining
On the flipside of all of this, there is a whole other sector of B2B organisations that profited well from the presence of the ash cloud. Since the volcanic crisis, virtual events company On24 has seen a 30 per cent increase in European attendance at virtual events. Virtual working and meeting companies have also reported big increases in usage. In a press release dated 20 April, Citrix Online reported a ‘significant increase’ in the adoption of online collaboration technologies by business users – with Andrew Millard, director of marketing and e-commerce, estimating that use of its services initially ‘doubled’ because of the ash cloud situation. When the story was picked up by Bloomberg and the Irish Times amongst others, this only served to increase interest in the brand even more.
Not that Citrix Online is any stranger to leveraging positive publicity from similar (if slightly less dramatic) situations. When the deep freeze took hold earlier this year Citrix, alongside YouGov, quickly conducted a sweep poll of senior decision makers to highlight the fact that many were unprepared for the snow, and whipped the results into a press release, thus providing a hook into which the ‘here we are to help’ message could be woven. Similarly, during the London tube strikes last summer, it quickly issued another press release bearing the top-line ‘5.2 million hours wasted by the strike’.
“These are moments where our products become more relevant, and whilst we don’t want to be seen as chasing ambulances, they are important times for us to communicate to businesses that there is an alternative way,” says Millard.
It is a similar story over at conference calling company Powwownow. It reported a 30 per cent increase in the number of registered users in the four days directly after Eyjafjallajoekul erupted (and a 60 per cent increase during the deep freeze). When the volcano first erupted, Powwownow was quick to send out an email communication to its 40,000 registered UK and European users. It also used its three Twitter feeds to let people know it was there as an alternative to face-to-face meetings and reviewed its Google analytics strategy to ensure that it was listed first for key search terms.
For Andy Pearce, Powwownow’s CEO, this activity is just part of an overall aim by the brand to position itself as an alternative to air travel, and perhaps the latest coup in an ongoing ‘feud’ that has been rumbling for some time between Powwownow and British Airways and Flybe. Earlier this year, when the airlines launched a print campaign urging that ‘Conference calls don’t win business’, Powwownow responded with a ‘vandalised’ version of the ad.
“We felt that [the airlines] were being socially irresponsible and so that’s why we went to war with them, and we hope to take this further and to push it quite hard,” says Pearce, who adds that with regards to the forthcoming British Airways strikes it has “campaigns designed to run at that stage”.
When asked about Flybe’s stance on the matter, Hobday declined to comment.
An act of God
“Of course, people won’t stop getting on planes as a result of what’s happened,” says Pearce, “but I believe that ultimately, people might start to think twice about it, because nobody wants to be stranded because of a strike or similar situation.”
Pearce goes on to offer some PR advice to the airline companies, “I think it was a very tough thing for them to have dealt with and they were put in a difficult position. However, I think they could have leveraged more pressure on the Government if they really did believe it was safe to fly, which [in turn] could have led to more positive PR.
“I know we are dealing with an act of God – but nobody appears to have written a manual on how we deal with an act of God that means that planes can’t fly.”
With ongoing eruptions from Eyjafjallajoekull almost certain, and fears that it may trigger an even bigger eruption from nearby Mount Katla, Pearce might just have identified a gaping hole in the crisis comms landscape.
