Reflecting on how FedEx turned a disaster into a PR win
The PR Daily web had a great post recently about how FedEx turned a disaster into a PR win.
This reminded me of when I used to deliver newspapers early morning. Sometimes, that meant delivering papers before sunrise.
First week on the job. I didn’t know the route nor the houses well. It was dark and I was looking for a house number… while slowly backing up…threw the paper…CRASH!
My car’s rear hit a parked SUV. I rung the house it was parked in front of and a sleepy gentleman opens the door.
Pointing to the parked SUV, I ask, “Is that yours?”
He’s answers, “Yes!”
I respond, “I backed into it.”
A moment passes and then he says, “It’s an accident. So far you’re doing pretty good.”
Later, it turns out that gentleman is Mayor.
The only genuine way of dealing with a mistake is facing it and ensuring that changes are made to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s possible that you may lose a customer and possibly some money. But you cannot put a price on your reputation or integrity for that matter.
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Arif Kabir Says:
Excellent points. It reminds me of what they teach in resume workshops: when they ask you your weaknesses, don’t try being sassy and say”My greatest weakness is that I have no weaknesses.” but rather be candid about a weakness of yours BUT also discuss how you’re trying to fix it.
Yusuf Chowdhury Says:
Amazing post Belal. It also shows you are a man of integrity
Belal Khan Says:
Thanks for the kind words. I’d like to think I’m a man of integrity. However, I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. I’d be delivering on that route for weeks to come, someone would have noticed. Plus, It was my parent’s car. I wasn’t going to explain to them that I messed up their car by lying about what happened.
Malik Says:
Assalaamu ‘alaikum Belal, great point and thanks for sharing your story!
It so reminds me of one such situation we dealt with back in 2006. We had to face thousands of our users after we had lost ALL of their data that was with us while trying to migrate servers. They were not normal users but businesses and webmasters themselves and their data that we lost was subscribed to by their users — so the adverse impact was exponential.
We had two options to respond. One was to quietly pack our bags and never show up again — We were running our services for free at that time and doing this did not mean any financial loss. Also, nobody knew our faces or our personal details (except names), so they had nothing to identify us personally. The other option was to face all the fire but stand up and accept our mistake and let not have a mark on our integrity and inner conscious.
Alhamdulillah, with the help of Allah, we built our courage and chose the second option — see: http://www.rapidfeeds.com/blog/2006/08/02/the-breakdown/. After this, we were like a boxing torso dummy prepared to receive all the knocks w/o any defence but believe me, to our great surprise what we received was totally opposite!! I can’t remember of a single email from our users that had disgraced us. You can still read the encouraging comments of about 15 of the users who commented directly on the blogpost. Those comments still boost my enthu when I read them today.
Coincidentally, we are planning another major migration and upgrade next weekend. Hope everything will be fine insha Allah! Sorry for this blogpost size comment BTW
Zainab Fida Ahsan Says:
Barak Allah feekum brother.
May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala let not our hearts to deviate after He has guided them…ameen
Wassalam aleykum to you and your family.