INTRODUCTION
According to Statista, the number of worldwide social media users in 2017 reached 2.46 billion and is expected to grow to 2.77 billion this year. With this many social media users, mishaps can happen both intentionally and unintentionally.
For example, early in 2018, Marriott Hotels fired an hourly employee after he liked a tweet, on behalf of Marriott International, during a night shift. The tweet was posted by a Tibetan separatist group that had praised Marriott for listing Tibet as a sovereign state in a customer survey.
What made matters worst was the employee didn’t know the “social graces” of dealing with this issue and didn’t think his job would be endangered by liking the tweet. However, for accidentally recognizing Tibet as a country, Marriott was ordered to suspend bookings for its 300 hotels in China for one week.
With the rapid-fire speed at which information can spread and without proper guidelines in place, your business is exposed to risks. Here is how to handle a social media crisis related to a rogue employee and rebuild your hotel’s reputation.
CREATE POLICY AND MONITOR REGULARLY
Prevention is better than cure. If you don’t have an employee handbook, you need to create one immediately.
Your handbook should include standard items, such as a code of conduct, plus communication policies that set expectations for social media use. On that point, make sure your social media policies don’t violate the National Labor Relations Act, which, in short, protects the rights of employees and employers, but it may have guidelines for appropriate online behavior as a representative of the hotel.
For current hotel employees, enforce the guidelines in your hotel staff meetings or e-newsletters to stay fresh in your employee’s minds. Since some staff (e.g. front desk) have access to hotel computers, providing examples of appropriate and inappropriate online activity may be helpful. For example:
- “We expect you to act responsibly, exercise good judgment and respect confidentiality when communicating information that identifies [HOTEL].”
- “If you comment about [HOTEL], its employees, vendors or guests on the Internet, you must clearly identify yourself as speaking on your own behalf and not as a representative of the company.”
The more quickly a hotel can mitigate
In addition, make sure to train all senior staff no matter what time of the day–for example, the night auditor overnight–how to take immediate action if something occurs.
HOW TO RECTIFY THE AFTERMATH
If your hotel has a rogue employee, work with law enforcement as needed and respond quickly on social media. A sample response could be, “We are aware of the comment an employee made [on social media, in person].” Then add:
- If the comment was an opinion: “While everyone is entitled to an opinion, we respectfully disagree with the comment made.”
- If the comment was a lie: “Please note that none of what was mentioned is true, and we have reported the post to get it removed.”
Based on your employee handbook, the actions of the rogue employee may lead to their termination. That should be made clear to the public as well as staff and any other affected parties.
If the situation was large enough to reach external media, have the hotel spokesperson address how the hotel will move forward and prevent a similar incident from happening again. This will help rebuild your hotel’s reputation and help regain trust in your customer base.