Social Media has made communicating layoffs a top priority

As I flipped through the papers today, it’s almost always guaranteed to have layoff news on it. It’s never easy to communicate something like this, especially in such terrible times.(The company will always be the bad guy!) However, it’s interesting to note how companies are going about announcing the lay-offs. (This is purely from an external perspective and I have no idea how the internal comms are handled)

Let’s start with DBS. I did a post on them a few weeks back and the people’s bank really went through a terrible time with the High notes issue being linked with Lehman brothers. To compound their problems even further, DBS was going though layoffs for some of it’s senior staff. How did they go about handling 2 problems? Focus on the layoffs to appease the shareholders that costs are being cut and use lousy customer service to answer the investors who invested in the high notes.

Then there’s Yahoo! who had the recent layoffs of 1500 staff. Every knows Yahoo! has been going through a horrible time because of declining profits and the whole Yahoo-Microsoft saga. I interned at Yahoo! and i know they’ve got excellent internal communications. I’m sure those that were being laid-off would have known well before hand and would have been properly compensated. It doesn’t help that with Yahoo!’s current situation that the economic crisis had to occur leading to cost cutting via layoffs.  The communications to the media and online blogosphere was open and honest.

As i read about the lay-offs, i was wondering why the comms folks in Sunnyvale didn’t try to steer the media towards their new product launches. I mean you have an article from Mashable that says Yahoo! might be the next great app platform and an article from ReadWriteWeb which says Gmail struggling with Email wants to be your task manager too. Both articles came out on the same day. So why focus so much on the layoff news when it might be possible to push out other news which can enhance your reputation at a time like this? In fact, why not keep quiet about it?

I point the finger to social media but more importantly micro-blogging and citizen journalism. This article from MarketingVox, Yahoo layoffs draw more blog coverage than ad campaigns, nicely sums up why today’s companies should be tackling layoffs more seriously. However, it was also nice to know that showing your pink slip online allows others to know that you’re ready for your next job! Tokbox showed how it was able to leverage from Yahoo!’s layoffs.

So it’s inevitable to make a layoff private. It’s also not very smart to focus on something other than your layoff. It should be a top priority because you’re now the Lich King. (WOW analogy for being a bad guy). You can check out this post here, You’re Fired: 7 Public Relations Tips for HR managers in an age of layoffs. on how to communicate a layoff

DBS to improve customer service via web2.0?

DBS has been having a terrible time settling its highnote case. It’s reputation has taken a huge blow because of the way it has reacted to this incident coupled with the fact that this quarter’s earnings have been the worst since 2005.

They have responded to the highnote incident by reporting some of their relationship managers to the MAS, by going through consumer profile to see if the product fits the consumer and willing to turn some away and internally retrenching its workers.

Whilst Michael is amused by the struggles DBS faces in communications on the differences in announcing the layoffs and handling the highnotes issue, there is another concern which is the way DBS has. It has a very very poor customer service or front line office people to handle any situation.

You can see the details of one customer who had problems just signing up for a  credit card. As of last week, investors still had not heard from the bank about the mini bonds issue and were clearly unhappy by holding protest talks at the speaker’s square. While the MAS has been trying to calm these investors, DBS has taken a backseat by focusing its communications on the layoffs.

Internally, the relationship managers are mulling over selling. They are wondering if the new policy of going though consumers profile would prove to have less commission for them.

It’s a sticky situation they find themselves in now and I’m wondering if any earlier social media attempts to allow open communications to the public and any internal social media communications within the company would work for a bank?

I know the various arguments about banks using such tools. Not professional enough, company secrets leaked, etc. But the fact that it has branded itself as the people’s bank, shouldn’t there be a medium to improve its crappy customer service?

I’m sure many of us have heard of dell hell and how it transformed its customer service with the use of twitter and blogs. Yet would this same approach work for a bank?

Yet i have my reservations due to 2 issues.

1. The consumer profile of the investors (Some include the elderly who are clearly not computer savvy enough)
2. The value of the mini bonds which can run up to hundreds of thousands and are people’s life saving (Not a laptop)

Yet would it not have been great if there was a common platform to trash this out. Given that the MAS has responded much more openly than before and that consumers need a better customer service to register their complains via twitter groups or blog posts (I’m sure there are common issues and these can be grouped together)

While i know Kim would argue about setting up a ‘dark site’ in times of a crisis, I’m wondering if any social media attempts prior to the highnotes incident would have made this crisis more bearable? Or because of the nature of the banking industry and the nature of the crisis victims (The elderly), would this not work?

Comments and feedback are welcome!