Crisis Response Letter to Investors and Presentation to Customer

CRISIS RESPONSE LETTER TO INVESTORS AND PRESENTATION TO CUSTOMERS

You start your workday by checking social media and are unhappy to find a bit of a crisis.  During the process to upgrade SeeMojis software, a technical glitch caused some of our emojis to come up as random keyboard symbols.  Instead of cute faces with funny expressions, customers were seeing “=-+” and “&!$.” They are not being quiet about it.  The tweets are brutal:

@SeeMojis creativity has hit an all-time low!  What does &!$ mean?

@SeeMoji I thought SeeMoji was supposed to be a tech company. #nogoodproductsleft!

@SeeMoji Your tech people are incompetent. Get it together! #missingthetranslation

You have an email from Patricia Baker, Ms. Boss’s administrative assistant.  She says:

“Im sure you saw the social media storm this morning.  I need you to do some damage control.  Ms. Boss has informed me we are taking two corrective actions immediately: 

• We will restore our library of emojis in the next 24 hours.
• We will offer customers a discount code for 50% off next months subscription.

First, Ms. Boss needs you to write a letter to investors to let them know about this bad news and how we are addressing our crisis.  Do not apologize, but do reassure them that while this may affect quarterly revenue, SeeMoji still expects to meet its annual revenue goals. Tell them customers really do love our new products and the expansion of platforms for our emojis.  Were counting on you to help us build some goodwill!

Then, please prepare a video presentation for customers and post it on Twitter. Thats where customers are complaining, so thats where they should hear from us.  Apologize and let them know about our corrective actions.  (Note that you will be recording this in Zoom, not really posting it to Twitter.)

Next, you receive an email from your mentor:

Hey,

Tough assignment! Welcome to the messy job of…well…cleaning up messes.  I’ve been following our mentions on social media since last night, too, so here are some tips:

For your letter to investors, remember that they will not be happy to receive bad news about the angry customers and possible lowered quarterly revenue, so it is important to follow the indirect pattern for a bad news letter.  You will want to be positive about the situation, but you need to remember that the law requires companies to notify investors about anything that might affect profits, so you cannot ignore what happened or how angry it made at least some of our customers.  In other words, you have to tell the truth. 

One positive is that based on other social media posts, it looks like customers love the animated emojis and really like that they are able to use the emojis on Facebook, along with the other social media platforms they have been able to use them on in the past. In your letter, let the investors know about these thingstheyll be looking for something good in all of this.  Theyll also appreciate knowing through a formal communication specifically how the problem is being promptly addressed.

When it comes to addressing the crisis with customers using a Twitter presentation, I’d do three things. First, I’d apologize to the customers and let them know that you understand and respect how they feel. Take responsibility for our lack of judgment and explain how this error happened.  If you don’t, customers won’t believe a word you say. Then, offer the 50% discount as part of our apology. Strike a balance between being humble about what’s happened and being upbeat about what the future holds. It’s important to convince them that the company will take action to prevent this glitch from happening again. Finally, thank the customers. Everyone likes to feel appreciated.

Good luck again!

Jen Avatar