Applebee's PR Crisis

Today’s blog is something I discovered completely by accident. While I was procrastinating starting this blog I logged on to Twitter and noticed that some PR professionals I follow were talking about a company called Applebee’s in the US and a Social Media PR crisis that they were involved in last week. I became interested in what they were saying and done some background research on the company as I had heard of them but wasn't sure on what they did.

After my research I found out they were an American company which focus on casual dining and have many franchisees in the U.S and Asia, and one in Greece. The first opened in Georgia in 1980 and in 2011 there were 2,010 opened worldwide.

Back to their crisis! On the 30th of January an employee of a franchise in St.Louis posted a photo of a customer’s receipt which included the customer’s name, which is of course, a breach of privacy. The customer was a pastor who had written on the receipt “I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?” An employee who had not been waiting their table had posted the photo on a website called Reddit and this was then seen by the customer. The photo went viral and had been posted on various social media and networking sites. The employee who posted the photo online was fired immediately and this has also caused a massive debate among the public, stating this punishment was too severe.

The company then caught wind of the attention and retaliated with updates on their Facebook and Twitter and a Press Release on their website. The company are getting slated for handling the incident so badly.

They only thing to company did right is to not stay silent and say nothing. They updated their sites with the facts of the situation and links to their press release. And example is the following post they posted on their Facebook on the 1st Feb which has so far received almost 14,000 comments. It is also the same statement which was released by Applebee’s President, Mike Archer:

“We appreciate the chance to explain our franchisee’s action in this unfortunate situation.

Please let us assure you that Applebee’s and every one of our franchisees values our hard working team members and the amazing job they do serving our guests. We recognize the extraordinary effort required and the tremendous contribution they make, and appreciate your recognition and support of our colleagues.

At the same time, as we know you will agree, the guests who visit Applebee’s -- people like you -- expect and deserve to be treated with professionalism and care in everything we do. That is a universal standard in the hospitality business. That includes respecting and protecting the privacy of every guest, which is why our franchisees who own and operate Applebee’s have strict policies to protect personal information -- even guest’s names. 

With that in mind, here is what happened in St. Louis:
- A guest questioned the tip automatically attached to her large party’s bill by writing: "I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?" on the check.
- A different server, who did not even wait on the group, photographed the receipt, posted the photo online and commented about the incident.
- The guest subsequently heard from friends who identified her from the posting, where her name is clearly visible, and the restaurant was notified. There was no further communication with the guest.
- The team member was asked about posting the receipt and admitted she was responsible.
- When she was hired, the team member was provided the franchisee’s employee hand book which includes their social media policy and states:
“Employees must honor the privacy rights of APPLEBEE’s and its employees by seeking permission before writing about or displaying internal APPLEBEE’S happenings that might be
considered to be a breach of privacy and confidentiality. This shall include, but not be limited to, posting of photographs, video, or audio of APPLEBEE’S employees or its customers,
suppliers, agents or competitors, without first obtaining written approval from the Vice President of Operations. The policy goes on to specify: Employees who violate this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment. 
- As a result of her admission to violating a clear company policy intended to safeguard guests, the team member is no longer employed by the franchisee.

Our franchisees are committed to acting in the best interests of guests and team members. This is a regrettable situation and we wish it had never happened. However, the disregard for an important policy left the franchisee no choice but to take the action they did.

We hope this provides you with some additional insight. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to explain the facts involved.”
At the same time, as we know you will agree, the guests who visit Applebee’s -- people like you -- expect and deserve to be treated with professionalism and care in everything we do. That is a universal standard in the hospitality business. That includes respecting and protecting the privacy of every guest, which is why our franchisees who own and operate Applebee’s have strict policies to protect personal information -- even guest’s names. 

With that in mind, here is what happened in St. Louis:- A guest questioned the tip automatically attached to her large party’s bill by writing: "I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?" on the check.- A different server, who did not even wait on the group, photographed the receipt, posted the photo online and commented about the incident.- The guest subsequently heard from friends who identified her from the posting, where her name is clearly visible, and the restaurant was notified. There was no further communication with the guest.- The team member was asked about posting the receipt and admitted she was responsible.- When she was hired, the team member was provided the franchisee’s employee hand book which includes their social media policy and states:“Employees must honor the privacy rights of APPLEBEE’s and its employees by seeking permission before writing about or displaying internal APPLEBEE’S happenings that might beconsidered to be a breach of privacy and confidentiality. This shall include, but not be limited to, posting of photographs, video, or audio of APPLEBEE’S employees or its customers,suppliers, agents or competitors, without first obtaining written approval from the Vice President of Operations. The policy goes on to specify: Employees who violate this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment. - As a result of her admission to violating a clear company policy intended to safeguard guests, the team member is no longer employed by the franchisee.
Our franchisees are committed to acting in the best interests of guests and team members. This is a regrettable situation and we wish it had never happened. However, the disregard for an important policy left the franchisee no choice but to take the action they did.
We hope this provides you with some additional insight. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to explain the facts involved.”

The mistakes they made outweighed the things they did right though. These include commenting individually back to people that had commented under their status, they were also commenting back at ridiculous hours of the morning like 3a.m. . They also started deleting comments on the post and blocking users from viewing their page. This is a prime example of how not to deal with a crisis online. In their case I think they should have posted their initial posts and left it at that instead of making a bigger problem for themselves in the long run.

That’s just my opinion though! They might recover from this poor publicity and they may not. They have apparently already had thousands of customers complaining that until the fired employee has been re-hired they will not be returning to the restaurant chain. They should have had a crisis plan in place for an iincident like this. I will hopefully get a chance in one of my final blogs to look at any other further moves they made if the employee did in fact get their job back!