Don’t let lawyers control your crisis management
Progressive has made a fortune branding itself as the “everyman” of the insurance world with its kitschy commercials, but a major crisis management failure has caused the brand harm it could have avoided. At the heart of the controversy is a Tumblr created by Matt Fisher, whose sister Katie was killed in an auto accident. On the Tumblr, he shares the story of how his family was (allegedly) given the run around when attempting to collect on Katie’s Progressive policy and eventually settled on suing the driver of the car that struck Katie, which would allow the family to collect on the policy. According to Matt, Progressive then actually provided a lawyer for the defense in an attempt to avoid paying out for Katie.
While sites like The Consumerist have postulated that there are legitimate legal reasons Progressive would have taken over the defense, the knee-jerk reaction of most people hearing a heart wrenching story like this one is to get angry, and that’s exactly what happened. The absolute torrent of enraged posters descending on Progressive’s social media pages, along with the countless shares and re-posts of Matt’s story across the ‘net clearly called for a response.
What did Progressive, the “everyman” do? Exactly what it shouldn’t – resort to legalese and corporate speak. Below are a couple of early responses from the company:
The first statement, from Chris Wolf, general manager at Progressive, posted in response to a blogger:
“To be very clear, Progressive did not serve as the attorney for the defendant in this case. He was defended by his insurance company, Nationwide.”
Another drew yet more fire from critics, the full statement was quickly wiped from the ‘net by what appears to be a ban of Progressive’s TwitLonger account.
“This is a tragic case, and our sympathies go out to Mr. Fisher and his family for the pain they’ve had to endure. We fully investigated this claim … and feel we properly handled the claim within our contractual obligations.”
Interviewed for a Ragan article by Matt Wilson, BCM President Jonathan Bernstein had this to say about Progressive’s response:
Jonathan Bernstein of Bernstein Crisis Management says the inclusion of the phrase “contractual obligations” couldn’t be much worse.
“That might be the legal truth, but repeating it in the court of public opinion was a #crisisfail,” he says.
By allowing lawyers to take over its messaging, Progressive essentially announced that its carefully-constructed image of a caring, compassionate provider was nothing more than a facade for the type of money hungry corporate machine the public loves to hate. Deviating so far from its publicly presented ideals was a major crisis management mistake that will cost the company in both reputation and lost business.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/