Spirit (-less) Airlines Charges Flight 1549 Survivors Cancellation Fee
Customer Service January 19th, 2009
Ouch, this airline badly needs Customer Service training.
Spirit Airlines is trying to charge passengers extra fees after canceling a flight, which forced the passengers to be on the plane that landed in the river Thursday.
Rob and Jeff Kolodjay were scheduled to fly on Spirit Airlines to a golf vacation with four other friends on Thursday out of LaGuardia in New York City. Their flight got cancelled, and they were rebooked on to US Airways flight 1549.
While the Kolodjay’s have good things to say about US Airways, they are less pleased about the policies of their original carrier. When they tried to cancel the return tickets on Spirit they could not use because they never made it to Myrtle Beach, the company representative insisted on charging them a cancellation fee.
Source: Fox61, Consumerist, and soon all media outlets. I doubt Spirit has even a clue about the magnitude of the PR Nighmare they are getting into…
Update: The story is making the rounds. Her’s an interesting reaction:
You know, in some cultures the response to this would be to lock the customer service representative in a room with a gun and expect him to do the honorable thing. I’m not saying that this is the right solution – but it’s probably the one that Spirit Airlines might end up wishing that it could pursue…
(Photo Credit: CrunchGear)
Update: Somebody who thinks woke up @ Spirit, reversing the earlier decision:
Spirit Airlines has given the Kolodjay family a full refund and have issued credits to their credit cards. They will not be charged anything by Spirit Airlines.. We applaud everyone involved in bringing these passengers to safety wish the family the best.
Tags: airline charges, airline crash, Customer Service, flight 1549, hudson river crash, pr, PR fiasco, pr nightmare, spirit airlines, us airways
If Scoble Thinks He Found Bad Startup Marketing, He Ain’t Seen Nothing
Marketing / PR, Startups September 8th, 2008
If Robert Scoble thinks he found examples of poor startup marketing (Startups: your web site sucks) he ain’t seen nothing
. How about picking a name that almost actively drives visitors away?
A few months ago Ben Kepes drew my attention to Viisibility, and I promptly called out their really poor naming: how can they call their supply chain company Viisibility when there is already an ERP business named Visibility?
Now a friend who’s watching TechCrunch50 on site tells me he likes FairSoftware. OK, let’s check them out… what is so innovative about Fair / Trade Show management software, and it does not even appear to be a startup!
Hm… but Crunchbase says:
FairSoftware is the place to start and grow a virtual online business. It only takes a few clicks for software developers and website publishers to incorporate, hire and share revenue with other project members.
…
Bloggers, designers and developers can use FairSoftware to grow their business by working together online, without having to deal with the complexity and limitations of traditional corporations.
What’s wrong here? They picked a name with only the .net domain available: fairsoftware.net . Not too good… but perhaps not the end of the world – unless the .com version belongs to another software company. Now it’s a disastrous choice. Unless, of course if they already have a deal to acquire that domain.
Update: iCharts is another one with the .net domain only, but it’s by far not as bad as FairSoftware. icharts.com does not appear to be a real business, just a parked domain whose owner is probably holding out for a high price. Hm… will they buy it?
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Tags: branding, brands, company name, Demo, demofall, domain, icharts, marketing, naming, pr, Startups, techcrunch50
How Brian Solis Invented the Conversation Prism
Humor, Social Networking August 7th, 2008
First I really could not imagine how PR Maven Brian Solis came up with the Conversation Prism: Chrysanthemum: (clarification by Susan Scrupski)
But then I got enlightened by fellow Enterprise Irregular Brian Sommer, who introduced me to the creative process:
Creating A Stop Sign – Watch more free videos
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Tags: brian solis, conversation prism, Humor, marketing, pr, pr 2.0, scope creep
Have Some Class, PR People!
Marketing / PR, Startups January 28th, 2008
Yet another PR email about a startup launch at Demo – that’s OK, some are actually interesting. The email itself was a fairly standard one, what ticked me off was the signature block:
Jane Doe
Public Relations Consultant
myname@yahoo.comwww.customcardsbyme.com
Ebay UserID: idunno
Obviously I changed the specifics, to protect her privacy. And on second thought, I am not the one hurt here – the startup is.
Please, please, when you spend megabucks to attend Demo, could you not find a real PR rep? (If you can’t, I’m sure my friend Brian Solis will help you). And for you, so-called PR Consultants: please, have some class! You have to decide if you’re promoting your Client or your eBay deals. You can’t do both.
The Nothing New Announcement
Humor, Marketing / PR January 10th, 2008
Ever get the feeling that some tech firms have run out of anything new to say? So does fellow Enterprise Irregular Brian Sommer, so he offers a template for such companies:
XYZ Announces Nothing New
Nothing New to Become the New Industry Standard
January 9, 2008 – Chicago – Today, XYZ Corporation is announcing ‘Nothing New’ a revolutionary, industry-leading approach to stall-ware, procrastination and marketing waste. “We believe this is the most important announcement we’ve made this year – maybe this decade”, says Jim Bigwind, CMO of XYZ.
…
“This announcement is nothing short of extraordinary. It is, in fact, nothing” says XYZ customer Getz Fleeced Oftin at SoftTouch Ltd.
…
Blithering Media represents way too many tech firms and amazingly enough has no one on staff that understands the space. Blithering Media personnel are expert though at crafting press releases on just about anything (or nothing as in this case). For more info on Blithering Media contact us point.less@ blitheringmedia.com
I’m not giving away the full announcement – click over to Software Safari and enjoy. 
Update (1/11): Wow, Brian is on fire: his next piece, Acronym Shortage to Adversely Impact Tech Sector is a must-read. 
How SAP Ended up Promoting NetSuite
Business, ERP / CRM, Enterprise Software, Marketing / PR, SMB / SME, SaaS May 22nd, 2006
NetSuite, the provider of perhaps the best hosted integrated software solution for the SMB market tried to rain on SAP’s parade during SAPPHIRE 06 in Orlando. They planned to host a cocktail party in a hotel suite right across the Convention Center. The party’s theme was “SAP for the rest of us” and the email invitation posed a question/answer: “Who will become the SAP for the midmarket? (It Ain’t SAP),” Cute. 
Of course SAP got p***ed and enforced it’s contractual right to cancel competitive events in any of the SAPPHIRE venues. SAP’s Spokesman Bill Wohl called NetSuite’s move “guerilla marketing“.
Now, what’s wrong with Guerilla Marketing? It’s fun … if you have humor to appreciate it. Last week SAP didn’t.
The result? NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson laughed off the “loss” and will hold a web-conference instead. This being a juicy story of course it got picked up in the media and quite a few blogs – the media blitz lasted a few days, then will start again around the web-conference … so basically SAP’s decision to kill the party provided NetSuite with a fair amount of publicity – exactly what it needs as it ramps up for its IPO planned later this year. Zach should send a thank-you note to SAP.
Here’s what I think SAP should have done: let it happen, and set up their own counter-party. Had it been allowed to proceed it would have been a noon-event. Not that NetSuite is a negligible company, in fact they have an excellent product. Some say Salesforce.com is just a glorified contact manager relative to NetSuite, and I tend to agree. (I put my money where my mouth is: in my last corporate job I became a NetSuite customer, after careful comparison to Salesforce). That said, NetSuite is targeting strictly the SMB market, in fact more the “S” than the “M”, while SAP despite all their SMB initiatives is still largely the Enterprise Company – SMB is just not their sweet spot. SAP had their own SMB people in Orlando (I interviewed Gadi Shamia, SVP for SMB Solutions, and intend to write about it soon) – they should have set up their own party right next to NetSuite, and present SAP’s vision for that market segment. In fact they could have embraced the NetSuite event (steal their show) and make up SAP logo’d signs pointing to both events.
The impact of the NetSuite party, especially in an environment where most participants are already biased towards SAP would have been minimal. In fact NetSuite had more to gain from the cancellation and the resulting media blitz then actually proceeding with the party … so much so, that I wonder if NetSuite intentionally leaked the news to SAP – a brilliant PR coup, if you ask me.
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Tags: emergencecapital, guerillamarketing, hummerwinblad, intacct, marketing, midmarket, netsuite, pr, salesforce.com, sap, SAPPHIRE06, smallbusiness, smb, sme, zachnelson, zoliblog
Zoli Erdos
