INTRODUCTION
A recent Harvard Business Review study found that discrimination is a “prevalent phenomenon” in the customer service industry. Discrimination can take place internally (within staff members) and externally (with or from customers). It can come in the form of gender, occupation within the restaurant, race or other protected characteristics.
Here is how to handle a social media crisis related to discrimination and rebuild your restaurant’s reputation.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, RESPOND QUICKLY
With the goal of keeping your restaurant’s reputation intact and minimizing backlash from the incident, it’s important to take responsibility for any action. Don’t make excuses, as this will only add fuel to the fire. For example, a Philadelphia Starbucks manager had the police arrest two African-American men for refusing to leave after not ordering anything. Within minutes, this situation went viral on social media, causing a mess for the coffee shop.
As with all negative reviews, but even more with discrimination claims, it’s vital your restaurant respond within the first few hours. If possible, after you post your public comment, follow up in a private message on Yelp or Facebook. Sample language of your public response will likely include, “Discrimination of any kind is not tolerable at our establishment, and I want to offer our sincerest apologies for what happened. We plan to investigate this situation further and will do our part to prevent it from happening again.”
It’s critical to position the situation as an isolated, one-time event, especially if the media writes about the discrimination incident. If this happens, you should address the issue publicly. A sample post on social media could say, “It has been reported that a discrimination-related incident occurred at our establishment. To date, this is the first time such an incident has happened. We take these types of claims very seriously and are currently investigating the issue to determine our best course of action. Discrimination of any kind is not tolerated at our restaurant and we will do our part to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
RE-ESTABLISH INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENT
Sometimes discrimination can come internally. For example, an employee reports discrimination from another employee. After you investigate the incident, you should explain to all the staff what happened and why it was wrong.
Make sure to show your sympathy and support for the affected employee, as he/she is the victim. Also, be open to the entire staff about the corrective action, whether the offender received a written warning, received a suspension or was terminated.