A Damage Control Ballet – Deconstructing a Reputation Management Event

I took note earlier of CEO David Friend and Customer Service Manager Len Pallazola of Carbonite as they did some pretty fancy damage control on a negative blog post about Carbonite on Vinnie Carpenter’s blog.

As you can see, these guys handled the situation – and took control of the room, leaving anyone willing to read more than the first few posts with a very positive sense that Carbonite has its act together. Mozy, on the other hand, did not participate in the discussion.

First, what’s at stake. As the discussion continued, Google ranked the blog higher and higher in the SERPs for search “carbonite vs. mozy” – not good for Carbonite.

In my opinion, this kind of damage control can only be done when the executives and customer support leaders of an organization stay totally on top of everything being said about their brand. They cannot address every little technical issue being said, but can watch for strongly worded negative posts and comments – to represent their brand and be sure there’s not just misunderstandings being spread around as facts.

It was a textbook case of damage control, so I’ve deconstructed it a bit, color coding the emotional reaction I had, as a potential customer, to what was being said in the conversation. This is not scientific, so feel free to chime in with your own opinions.

Here are the illustrations… enjoy:

PERCEPTION OF CARBONITE

You should read the actual post. My comments are meant to portray the essence of the comments.

Red = Expected Reader Negative Reaction to Carbonite
Green = Expected Reader Positive Reaction to Carbonite
Blue = Neutral/Question

CEO = Carbonite’s CEO, CMS= Carbonite’s Customer Service Manager

PDF version here.

I was impressed with how Carbonite handled this, and thought the emotional coding effect showed an interesting pattern.

Tagged as: blogging, Branding, ORM, Reputation Management, SEO, social media