Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • April 14, 2017
  • Article
  • Harvard Business Review (website)

Companies Like United Need to Cultivate Good Judgment, and Free Their Employees to Use It

By: John A. Deighton
  • Format:Electronic
ShareBar

Abstract

United Airlines has pledged to improve its training programs and empower its employees to put customers first in the wake of a video showing a passenger being dragged from a plane. Of all the U.S. air carriers, United should have known the power of social media and public outrage. It had learned years earlier in a prominent case about how fast viral content spreads and the ability of consumers to talk back to corporations. But the moral of this story is not how to do crisis management faster and better in a lightning-fast digital world. It’s that even the nimblest and deftest crisis management response cannot contain the damage of going straight to “call security” and crossing the last line of defense in customer service design. And an audience of customers standing by with their smartphones to record any spectacle seems to have had, until now, unfortunately, no discernable impact on corporate policy guidelines for dealing with uncooperative customers. Companies building computer-assisted rules for customer management in predictably difficult situations need to understand that human judgment is still one of the most important tools. Company leaders need to offer better employee training on all these points.

Keywords

Crisis Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Training; Air Transportation Industry

Citation

Deighton, John A. "Companies Like United Need to Cultivate Good Judgment, and Free Their Employees to Use It." Harvard Business Review (website) (April 14, 2017).
  • Register to Read

About The Author

John A. Deighton

→More Publications

More from the Author

    • March 2024
    • Faculty Research

    Sonder Holdings Inc.: Using Technology to Solve Hospitality's Frictions

    By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
    • 2022
    • Faculty Research

    The Internet's Effects on Consumption: Useful, Harmful, Playful

    By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
    • March 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Sonder Holdings Inc: Using Technology to Solve Hospitality's Frictions

    By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
More from the Author
  • Sonder Holdings Inc.: Using Technology to Solve Hospitality's Frictions By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
  • The Internet's Effects on Consumption: Useful, Harmful, Playful By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
  • Sonder Holdings Inc: Using Technology to Solve Hospitality's Frictions By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.