The below snippet is from Mumbrella's article 'What should Qantas do next? We ask the PR crisis experts'
Benjamin Haslem, Director, Media and Public Affairs, at Icon Reputation
Rebuilding trust takes time: Qantas must consistently deliver on its promises, maintain transparency, and demonstrate a commitment to improving the customer experience over the long term.
Vanessa Hudson starting in the role today should be positioned as a new broom, cleaning the place up, and returning Qantas to what it was in the past – a world class airline, with great customer service and an unparalleled safety record.
Qantas can use the end of the Joyce and Covid era as the chance for a reset. But it must deliver – all the PR and brand management in the world won’t help if your product doesn’t match up.
The airline has apologised for selling tickets for cancelled flights and for letting its standards fall. It’s a promising start, but Ms Hudson now needs to come out and apologise in person – she needs to own it.
She needs to show empathy and understanding for the public’s concerns and frustrations.
She needs to do a swag of media appearances — 7:30, breakfast TV and radio, Radio National breakfast, AM, A Current Affair — to let the public get to know her.
A targeted social media strategy should also be implemented to complement the traditional media campaign.
Make tangible commitments to listen and act – set measurable targets around flight cancellations; call centre wait times; numbers of frequent flyer seats.
Qantas did the right thing, in scrapping the expiry date on unredeemed Qantas credits.
It should look at other sweeteners but needs to avoid being seen to be trying and buy back the public’s support – do simple things like increase flights to regional areas; increase call centre staff; upgrade online booking systems; make it easier to redeem frequent flyer points – it’s all about improving the customer’s experience.