What you are looking at is a small sample of conversations that were happening on Twitter just hours ago. Cat Zwicker-Grant, who works in the Real Estate business also writes a blog. On her blog, she recently wrote on behalf of her friend who could not get a refund from Priceline. The circumstances though were understandable. Cat's friend had a baby who suffered from severe burns and could not travel. But Priceline wouldn't budge. Here's what happened next in Cat's own words.
"I opened Aaron’s email around 12:00PM PST I posted a Blog on Google describing the events and then sent a Tweet Blast around 2 if my tweets are logging PST, which is possible as I have no sense of time. Then I specifically re-tweeted to people with larger follows to help make sure I was heard. Aaron called me at 4 PM PST which is 7 in North Carolina and said that, “Priceline had called about an hour ago and offered to refund the money!”
Before you go crediting "social media" to this, know that Priceline had acknowledged several phonecalls from all different parts of the country. No doubt, this was tied to spark that Cat was just getting started on. Cat has a modest following on Twitter, with 148 followers. What's not modest about her is her smarts. She immediately started reaching out to people with significant influence and even MORE importantly, people who would take ACTION, like a simple phone call.
Priceline may have stopped a negative groundswell against them, before it ever had a chance. The retweets (twitter's own version of "viral") were already starting. The ripples were just being formed. Now what we don't know is if Priceline was listening—saw her blog post (with a moving image of the baby) or started to see the action happen on twitter but we do know that they made a decision that humanized the company. It's quite possible that Priceline saved themselves from a social media headache before most of us even knew abvout it. Whether it was because of the phone calls or tiny ripples forming, Priceline deserves credit for being a company that cares. Which isn't easy in this economy. Kudos to you Priceline!
Yes, kudos to Priceline, but I'm dying to know if it was the groundswell. I've asked @CatZwickerGrant via @trustworthy if she knows and haven't heard back. Cat, if you're reading this, please let us all know!
I do know that my buddy @robflemming emailed Priceline's SVP customer service with a link to the Twitter search results for 'priceline' - just love to know if it all had any effect.
Posted by: Kirk Skodis | Monday, January 12, 2009 at 08:22 PM
Kirk, I don't think a Groundswell ever happened, but it's possible it could have escalated. Hard to tell. The phonecalls definitely played a significant role for sure. But some of the calls may have been from people seeing what was happening.
Posted by: David Armano | Monday, January 12, 2009 at 08:32 PM
Well either way, it's a very interesting case study. It shows the "need for speed" after a social media flashpoint like this. Whether or not it was brought upon by the groundswell or not, the minute Cat posted they had been refunded, the whole thing was diffused.
Now a Twitter search returns as many good as bad tweets.
Posted by: Kirk Skodis | Monday, January 12, 2009 at 08:41 PM
It should be interesting to know that one of Cat's friends is the co-host on Twitter Tuesday radio and has 3000 followers @jasoncrouch - it's conceivable if someone at Priceline is tracking Google Alerts or monitoring Priceline on Twitter search they could have reacted this quickly. I'm very interested in knowing if this is a fact of co-incidence.
Posted by: @thekencook | Monday, January 12, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Great story. I also think Priceline was reacting to the calls, not the Tweets. But given a few more hours.. it would've been interesting to see how the situation progressed.
Posted by: Eric Hsieh | Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 03:46 AM
Thanks for the update - interesting contrast to Motrin. I'm increasingly tickled that "Groundswell" has become a generic term for these surges.
Posted by: Josh Bernoff | Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 09:56 AM
It is nice to see that sometimes in life all it takes is a little push from people for a large company to realize that we are all human and rules are not a one size fits all.
Thanks for the post David
Posted by: Frank Gorton | Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
While it's a good thing that Priceline corrected their mistake, I'm not sure I'll give them that much credit given their terrible initial decision.
Companies that act human in order to stop negative publicity are not as trustworthy as those that act human as a policy. Yeah, I'm trying to think of one now.
Posted by: sawinkler | Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 04:16 PM