Just the Facts
On Valentine's Day evening, writer/director Kevin Smith was booked on a Southwest Airlines flight home from a morning gig. He arrived to the airport early and was able to get on standby for an earlier flight. He was "lucky" enough to score the last seat.
It was a middle seat and, as Smith was getting settled in, the gate agent appeared to tell him there was a problem. A security problem, she said. After dancing around the subject a bit, it became clear she was saying Smith was too fat to fly. This, despite the fact Smith met Southwest's own criteria for being able to fly in a single seat; he was in his seat, armrests down, and not encroaching on the seats next to him. The passengers he was seated between were fine. No complaints there. But, yet, somehow he was deemed a "security risk" and whisked off the plane as if he had tried to light his underwear on fire.
The Southwest Airlines gate agent (who through Smith's SMODcast we learn is named Suzanne) took Smith off the flight said the airline would make it up to him. What did that mean? She left him waiting ten minutes after the on-board debacle, was evasive about why the decision was made (i.e. she kept claiming it was the pilot's call even though there was little chance the pilot would have even been able to see Smith--much less Smith in his seat), and then, Suzanne and her manager, offered Smith a $100 voucher for his trouble. Wow. I had no idea the going rate for public humiliation was so low.
A Little Blue Bird Told Me...
Smith, in his anger, took to Twitter, which he does just as often on a random day of the week. He has almost 1.7 million followers. After flying home (on Southwest--he had tickets and just wanted to get home; plus had he not been there he wouldn't have seen a young lady named Natali almost suffer the same indignity), Smith fired up his popular SMODcast to vent his frustration. A series of YouTube videos followed. Media and bloggers, often with a a strange level of vitriol or with just plain old bad facts, jumped on the bandwagon. The most famous of all Internet weasels--the board commenter--showed up to express opinions ranging from shock and outrage over Smith's situation to caustic and hate-filled comments directed at fat people in general.
Not-So-Silent Bob
That title is how Southwest decided to begin their blog post "apology" to Smith, which was little more than "sorry you had a bad experience, but we did nothing wrong."
While, apparently, Southwest reached out to Smith several times (beginning, ironically, through Twitter; would they have even tried had he not made such a stink to his followers? I'm guessing no.) and while, privately, according to Smith, he was told the problem was not his size, the public Southwest face has kept up the "we're really sorry he's fat" mantra. Following the Southwest blogs though (as Smith did and posted on his blog) it's clear there has been some silent, internal damage control happening on their story.
Why Smith Deserves a Real Apology
...and why it should be followed by an apology to everyone who has ever been effected by Southwest's "customer of size" policy.
The most obvious reason, in Smith's case, is he wasn't in violation of the policy. Before that fateful Valentine's Day, he flew Southwest a lot--often in one seat. Yes, on occasion, he would buy two seats (something Southwest shared with the world in the blog above; so much for privacy), but, according to Smith, this has more to do with not wanting to sit next to anyone than because he needs it for comfort. Who can't sympathize there? Not only do airlines increasingly pack people together like cattle headed to slaughter, but everyone has a story about sitting next to some mouth-breather. If you're Silent Bob, a hero of the "slacker" generation, I have to imagine flying can sometimes be a trying experience.
So he didn't violate the policy. Case closed. There's so much more to this though:
- Southwest's "customer of size" policy is an arbitrary PR nightmare. If you're going to ask your employees to go to your customers and tell them they are essentially "too fat to fly," you need to have rules in place for how and when it should be done. I have little doubt that there are people who can't fly in one seat and there are situations where this needs to be brought to a customer's attention. But, the defining measure of whether your policy is truly effective, is that the person affected still feels like a valued customer. Let's take humiliation out of the equation. Try a little kindness; it can go a long way.
- If you pay for a service and don't receive it, that's a problem. I wish I could say I've been shocked at the reaction of the trolls who have gone out of their way to defend Southwest. Being fat is up there with being ugly as one of the few things we're still allowed to discriminate against. Personally, I'd rather sit next to a very large person than a smelly one. And, sorry, the rankest souls I've ever been near have been pretty thin. What if Southwest started a "customers of fragrance" policy? Somehow I don't think that would've gone over quite as well.
- Lawyers and publicists makes strange bedfellows. I'm in PR. Unlike the slimy hacks you see in movies or on TV, most publicists I know recognize a crisis situation where their client has screwed the pooch and will tell them to apologize. Subterfuge does nothing but breed resentment and distrust. The problem is everyone is scared of getting sued. So when Smith relates a conversation he had with Linda (who it's pretty clear is from some level of Southwest's PR department) where she sincerely apologizes, says he wasn't too fat to fly, and wants to make the situation right, but then posts another BS blog full of hyperbole and double-speak, it's clear the lawyers got involved. That's too bad, because a transparent apology could have gone a long way to improving this situation as well as customer relations as a whole. Free PR tip: there's no shame in admitting you're wrong. People/corporations make mistakes. What makes you look like an ass is pretending like nothing happened.
- Say what you will about Twitter, but it's changed the conversation. And it's changed the way smart publicists and companies think about PR. Kevin Smith has 1.7 million followers not just because he's That Kevin Smith, but because his posts are funny, interesting, and relate-able. While CNN and other news outlets make a big deal of celeb followers, plenty of regular people have thousands or millions of followers. Or a blog. Or an active Facebook following. Or is an online journalist. It's so easy to have some level of a platform now and even if a post isn't reaching thousands of people all at once, it's always there--a grim specter of horrible customer service haunting the Internet. People will always bitch and there's not much a company can do about that--BUT good PR and customer service can go a long way to minimizing it. And part of that means--and this is hard to do--sometimes leaving the lawyers out of the room.
I want to pretend for a moment that I work for Southwest.
I just had a tiny heart attack at the nightmare of this situation. After I take a belt of scotch and the ticks subside, I would suggest taking Smith up on his offer to publicly prove he can fit into the seats. Do in private first (if he'll agree). Offer a sincere personal apology. Then go on a major network show and do it all over again. Tell the world that you stand by your overall policy but are reviewing the procedures around it because all of your customers are important and you want to make sure everyone has a great experience. And then actually do it. Train your employees to handle these situations so the poor person who has to be told they must purchase a second seat feels a minimal level of humiliation. It's not easy and there will be rogue employees, but it needs to be done.
So now that that's over....who wants to talk about Tiger Woods?
Best,
Nikita
