A small case studie about the Indian brand Cafe Coffe day being bashed online. Although it was not a huge crisis, it’s interesting to see how it started, evolved and end.
It all start with people meeting in Café Coffe day for tweetup (twitter meet up), problem occurs, manager is rude and people get pissed off
One write a blog post:
Coffee, tweetup & a rude shop manager.
(…) The manager of the coffee shop, a very rude man, a Mr. Shiva, asked us to leave or pay a cover charge!!! That too after we had ordered to a bill amounting to Rs.1114 and more to be ordered. First reaction was disbelief. Second reaction was suppressed anger. We were not some teenage gang occupying space after ordering a cuppa joe.
We asked for the bill, we paid and we left. Quietly. We are all gentle people who were out for an evening of fun. In short, it was indeed a shock to realize that paying customers are treated in such an ignominious manner by Cafe Coffee Day.
None of us would ever step in to their cafes again. EVER.
Another write on Mouthshut.com an indian site that collects consumer reviews about everything from products, brands, to movies, …
http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Coffee_Day-138622-1.html
Then people start tweeting about it using the hashtag #ccdsucks (A hashtag is a way to unite global Tweets around some particular topic. Basically, these are tags that that help those who seek)
Result is a big mob attack on twitter against cafe coffee days with a lots of irony and and attacks but also note that on the other hand there are a few people defending the company.
But the result is that there is a lot of discussion around the company.
Track the conversation live here and you’ll see people reactions as they talk:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23ccdsucks
Cafe Coffee day on twitter sees what’s going on but don’t how to stop it and is desperately asking for people’s phone number to apologize:
http://twitter.com/CafeCoffeeDay
As one twitter user summarize:
@flyyoufools: Tommorow’s headlines: Mob violence on Twitter again as ppl gang up against #ccdsucks. “Social media experts” called in. Blah blah –
UPDATE:
More people defending coffee day are expressing their view on twitter, while #ccdsucks supporters create a facebook fan page (only 11 followers so far):
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cafe-Coffee-Day-Sucks/291737396851
UPDATE2
After initial bashing some voices defend the company and try to calm things down
Does Cafe Coffee Day really suck?
Online influencer & social media consultant @Gauravonomics then ” Starting a new hastag #kudosCCD for all tweeple who think that @cafecoffeeday is handling the #ccdsucks meme well. ”
UPDATE 3:
After 5 days, things seems to calm down slowly, cafe coffee days has contacted the clients by phone to apologize. But the topic is still quite alive and people are still talking (with same #ccdsucks !)
This nice article summarize my point of view:
I do appreciate them getting to the bottom of the issue as quickly as they have, and apologised to the aggrieved parties involved. It’s not everyday that a company accepts their fault and tries to resolve the issue amicably. But clearly, things got out of hand and continued to do so for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the last tweet from Cafe Coffee Day stopped at 12:40 pm on 05 Feb 2010. I would’ve expected a more active participation and it would’ve served them better if they had followed the three As – Admit, Apologise & Act. CCD should’ve handled the matter using the following means:
1. Contacted the franchise and interviewed Mr. Shiva
2. Published the interview and admit their fault (if any)
3. Immediately, publish a blog post with their side of the story and action taken
4. Actively respond to all tweeps using the #ccdsucks tag with their twitter apologies and blog post
5. Conduct pt 4 in a quick timely fashion
6. Try to steer the conversation from #ccdsucks to #ccdrespondsOne of the primary reasons #ccdsucks has become a trending topic is because of the lack of active presence of Cafe Coffee Day on twitter. Their incapacity to steer the conversation from #ccdsucks to #ccdresponds (or the likes of it) seems to have cost them dearly.
Summary
