商務談判英語:JetBlue Apologizes

On February 14, 2007 (Valentine’s Day in the United States), airline JetBlue suffered a major crisis. Two inches of snow and ice at New York’s JFK airport led to 1,000 flight cancellations, massive delays, and passengers stranded on planes for up to nine hours. The event received massive media visibility, and it took almost a week for JetBlue to resume normal operations. While other airlines also suffered service disruptions because of the storm, JetBlue received most of the visibility for the breakdown-largely because, in its seven-year history, it had inspired much higher expectations of good treatment from its loyal customers.

JetBlue founder and CEO David Neeleman was faced with the challenge of how to repair the public’s trust in a way that would strengthen the strong brand identity that the company had created. In the week following the crisis, he appeared in every local and national news media. He accepted responsibility for bad decisions and organizational problems. He apologized repeatedly, promised refunds for stranded passengers, and promised to fix the problems that created the disaster. He also introduced a customer “bill of rights.” Two weeks after the meltdown, 43 percent of a sample of people visiting JetBlue’s website said the airline was still their number-one favorite.

In a time when most airlines enjoy very little customer confidence, Neeleman’s successful handling of the crisis has been highlighted as an example of creating a trustworthy brand identity – and being able to sustain it in a time of crisis. Bruce Blythe, CEO of Crisis Management International, sums it up well: “The single most important thing that a company needs to show in a crisis is that it cares. That’s not a feeling. It’s a behavior.”

Here is an abbreviated text of JetBlue’s apology, which is considered by many to be a “gold standard” for a good apology:

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration, and inconvenience that you, your family, friends, and colleagues experienced... JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to [our industry] and making the experience... happier. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week. You deserve better – a lot better – and we let you down.