Author: Jonathan & Erik Bernstein

Pushing for higher numbers at the sake of accuracy is bound to create problems

A glossy report created by the NFL’s Washington Redskins isn’t having the desired effect of seeding goodwill for the organization thanks to the muddled metrics included within. The report, created with the help of media monitoring services Meltwater and TVEyes and obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, states there were “7,845,460,401 unique visitors of print/online coverage of the 2014 Bon Secours Washington Redskins Training Camp from July 24-Aug. 12.” That’s a staggering number, especially considering that the entire population of earth is estimated at around 7.26 billion people.

The Redskins are being heavily scrutinized by Richmond, VA locals after promises that bringing the team’s training camp would bring revenue to the area fell flat, and while we’re certain a desire to show a return on investment drove the search for impressive numbers to show everyone, they went too far.

Although Meltwater has stated that “unique visitors” should have instead been “impressions”, the definition of impressions Meltwater Corporate Communications Expert Riana Dadlani shared with SBNation’s James Dator seems to be constructed to return outrageously high numbers:

Impressions/Potential viewership/Reach: Impressions/potential viewership/reach is calculated by taking the reach figure of the media outlet from comScore multiplied by the number of articles matched from that media outlet for a search query/agent. For example, Yahoo Finance has a reach of 100M viewers. If five articles were collected from Yahoo Finance then the impressions/potential viewership is 500M (i.e. 5 x 100M).

This is essentially passing on the notion that any time a story could conceivably have been read by someone counts as an impression, glossing over the fact that the vast majority of these people never noticed they saw a piece about the camp.

Analytics can be a major help to campaigns when used in sync with and to evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts. Problem is, the constant push for ROI today means more and more often they become a tool to prove results, whether the results are actually there or not. For both businesses and B2B services of all kinds, putting out bad stats is a quick way to damage reputation. Find legitimate ways to show value, or determine why you failed and how to improve, because tweaking formulas to ensure they only show what you’d like is an easy way to drag your own good name through the mud.

Top tips for avoiding problems from industry pros

Food safety issues are one of the most common cause of crisis for a huge number of organizations up and down the supply chain. From the folks who make the machinery to those who prepare and serve the end product, the effect of contamination (or even the appearance of such) can have a serious impact.

Earlier this month, the specialists at Checkit spoke to ten industry professionals to get their best advice for food safety and shared it in infographic form:

Bad customer service inevitably leads to reputation damage

Treating your customers poorly isn’t something that can be swept under the rug anymore. Besides being called out on review sites, in blogs, and across social media, you’ll also wind up on lists creating by organizations like 24/7 Wall Street, which uses survey data to assemble what they call the “Customer Service Hall of Shame”.

Here are their top five most shameful orgs when it comes to treating customers right:

1. Comcast
2. DirecTV
3. Bank of America
4. Dish Network
5. AT&T

Of course, the opposite is true of those who strive to meet and exceed expectations on a daily basis. Gaining positive reputation and goodwill through word of mouth on the street, online reviews, and landing on 24/7 Wall Street’s “Customer Service Hall of Fame” list among outstanding peers including…

1. Amazon
2. Chik-fil-A
3. Apple
4. Marriott
5. Kroger

We’ve shared stats on the adverse impact of negative customer experiences, but all too often these types of stats are read and immediately forgotten. If you’d like to keep your name off of the naughty list you need to make talking to your customers, working closely with your staff, and staying flexible when it comes to finding ways to keep people happy without harming yourself in the process an integral part of your day-to-day operations.

 

Exploring the effect company leaders have on your good name

CEOs are the most public face of an organization, and as such they play a major role in its overall reputation. While in the past it was possible for a CEO to “fly below the radar” except when paraded out for investor-related meetings or major product announcements, today’s interactive public want a more personal approach.

Weber Shandwick assembled some excellent research looking at the impact of CEOs on reputation, sharing the highlights in infographic form:

Saying you care is great, but backing it up with action is a must

We can barely go a week without another high-profile data breach hitting the news, and lax security from the latest target, UCLA Health Systems means as many as 4.5 million patients may be affected. Much like Anthem, UCLA didn’t bother to encrypt patient data in even the most basic of ways, meaning cybercriminals had little difficulty once they made their way into the network.

The LA Times’ Chad Terhune dug deeper into the nuts and bolts of the situation:

“We take this attack on our systems extremely seriously,” said Dr. James Atkinson, interim president of the UCLA Hospital System. “For patients that entrust us with their care, their privacy is our highest priority. We deeply regret this has happened.”

Atkinson said the hospital detected unusual activity on one of its computer servers in October and began investigating with help from the FBI.

It wasn’t until May 5, according to UCLA, that investigators determined that the hackers had gained access to parts of UCLA Health’s computer network where some patient information was stored.

Those parts of the network contained names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, Medicare and health plan identification numbers as well as some medical information such as patient diagnoses and procedures.

The unauthorized access could have begun in September 2014, UCLA said, and some of the patient information dates to 1990.

If we were among the patients whose information was exposed, the first question we would have is “Why didn’t anyone tell us until now?” After all, investigators knew May 5 that hackers had gained access to parts of the network where patient information was stored, so why the massive delay in communications?

Atkinson says, “For patients that entrust us with their care, their privacy is our highest priority.” Problem is, his actions say otherwise. A clear interest in self-preservation over the best interests of stakeholders has already been demonstrated. Now, it’s time for UCLA to either walk its talk, or eat the reputation damage that comes from failing to do so.

They may be more tech savvy, but are they keeping your data secure?

Younger generations may have grown up with technology at their fingertips, but according to a study on U.S. mobile security by Absolute Software they may not be so good at keeping that tech secure. The study found many younger respondents have lower expectations of their own responsibilities when it comes to keeping data secure, and that a full five times as many Millenials compromise IT security when compared to Boomers.

The study’s finding that younger generations’ habits of using work devices for personal purposes, jailbreaking or otherwise modifying settings, and accessing “Not Safe For Work” content on sites of questionable security points to an amount of risk that is likely surprising to those who have been working under the assumption that tech savvy equals tech safe.

There are plenty of amazing younger folk who would make incredible assets to any organization, but when it comes to crisis management you can’t ignore the trend that’s been revealed in a number of recent studies and polls. A scary portion of today’s workforce is putting their employer at risk of a tech-related crisis, and the best way to combat it is education. Make regular reinforcement on the do’s and don’t of tech use as it relates to your workplace a priority, and make sure you include the why if you want anyone to listen.

Grocer in a pickle after overcharging allegations surface once again

Late last month, Whole Foods found its integrity questioned on a national level after an audit of its New York stores by the NY Department of Consumer Affairs revealed rampant mislabeling throughout the store’s prepackaged foods, often resulting in customers paying more than they should have at the register. A combination of the chain’s already relatively high prices, along with the towering expectations of honesty and transparency it’s created among shoppers, resulted in negative outcry across both social and traditional media.

We expected a stellar response from Whole Foods, but instead we got a video from co-CEOs Walter Robb and John Mackey that left us with the kind of bad taste in our mouths usually associated with dipping into expired hummus:

https://youtu.be/UWUn2LYSb6g

Wooden delivery, awkward hand motions, poor excuses, a seeming difficulty with preventing smirks from creeping in and repeatedly pointing out that some errors were in favor of customers as well left us feeling no sympathy for Whole Foods. Fact is, just last year the grocer settled a case in California related to the same type of pricing problems, agreeing to pay nearly $800,000 and appoint “state coordinators” to keep tabs on pricing accuracy in that state. How, then, are we supposed to believe these errors are not only accidents, but also that Whole Foods is doing everything it can to keep things on the straight and narrow? Perhaps more importantly, this was only an apology, not an amends – they didn’t “make things right” with consumers. They should have done something like knocking 20% off all weighed-in-store products for a month – they’d make it up in associated purchases in no time.

Competition in fresh and healthy foods is more intense than ever. While Whole Foods is sitting firmly at the top of that mountain, it doesn’t take much to send shoppers elsewhere, especially considering the market is already saddled with the moniker of “Whole Paycheck” by even the happiest of customers. Beyond the temporary discount, our advice would be to establish a transparent and effective pricing system that either eliminates errors or makes certain they are not in Whole Foods’ favor. Will it cut into the bottom line a bit? You bet. But, considering the main issue here is Whole Foods at least appearing to care a little too much about locking in profits, it’s the right move in terms of crisis management.

Improving conflict handling reduces risk of crisis

There is nothing you can do to completely prevent conflict. Like it or not, it’s a fact, and one that’s better faced when you have time to prepare and plan than in the heat of the moment. Conflict resolution training is an asset to crisis management because it reduces risk of workplace violence, keeps lines of communication open, and helps to strengthen relationships, and one of the first things you’ll learn as part of any good program is people have very different approaches to conflict.

The infographic below, from Creighton University, describes the basics of how to employ some of the most common styles to achieve the best results for everyone involved:

A look at how your peers are using social media data to improve PR

It’s likely by now your organization is using social media wholeheartedly, and you’re probably even collecting data on things like stakeholder demographics, optimal posting times, and many other common factors. The question is, what the heck are you doing with it? If you’re sitting on a pile of data and don’t know what to do with it you’re likely to find some good suggestions in the infographic below, created by PR News and BusinessWire using polling data from PR pros around the country:

Another in the constant stream of reminders to stay vigilant about data security

Research from CIA-backed social media data mining firm company Recorded Future uncovered the fact that login credentials for nearly every federal agency have been posted in plan sight on paste dump pages like Pastebin.

BusinessInsider’s Cale Guthrie Weissman spoke with a representative from the firm to learn more about the discovery:

According to Recorded Future analyst Scott Donnelly, these findings are bad for a few reasons. For one, it means that government employees are using their work email address on insecure sites — leaving them wide open to hackers if any of those websites is compromised. Worse, many government agencies don’t employ proper login safeguards like two-step authentication, which can require employees to verify any new login attempts with the goal of preventing hacking attempts.

In fact, 12 of the 47 agencies tied to these credential dumps do not use two-step authentication standards, which has become a security must-do.

In other words, it doesn’t appear to be a sophisticated invasion or a piece of custom software that led to this info being made public, but rather simple lapses in security.

If this is what’s going on with government agencies that (presumably) have some sort of guidelines in place to help prevent such issues, how careful do you think the folks in your organization are? Educate your team on data security as often as possible, preferably with real-world examples to keep the lessons from becoming too abstract. It really is the most effective way to keep your data secure.