What we can learn from the NSW government’s Sydney Trains crisis
Meltwater's David Hickey takes a look at the digital clues leading up to Sydney Trains' narrowly avoided strike - clues which may have offered a solution to dodging the crisis entirely.
With the rise of social platforms as a medium for public feedback over the last decade, the luxury of time to plan for a crisis has dropped significantly. Forget hours, a company usually has just seven minutes to acknowledge a rising issue.
Source: Wikipedia
Businesses often lack the tools and foresight to prepare themselves for crises, and in doing so miss the opportunity to implement a strategic approach to resolve a problem. Instead of choosing to ‘wait and see‘ if an issue will become a full-blown crisis, businesses need to be prepared to implement a consistent, transmedia approach to crisis management at the drop of a hat.
Sydney Trains’ scheduled driver strike was going to affect 1.3 million Sydney-siders on Monday. The difference between this planned strike and many other crises? There was ample time to prepare for it in advance, due to the ongoing negotiations with the Rail, Tram & Bus Unions occuring weeks in advance. The Union also warned that a strike could be a likely outcome if negotiations weren’t successful.
The importance of looking at all the information available outside your own four walls is particularly important when it comes to preparing for a crisis, especially in a situation where millions of stakeholders and large economic impacts to a city are involved.
To Sydney Trains’ credit, it consistently kept the Sydney public up-to-date in the lead up to the overtime ban and planned strike, as well as offered suggestions for other means of transportation.
However, investing in active monitoring tools that provide external stakeholder insights in real-time could have easily mitigated a full scale crisis — or at the very least, helped better prepare for last week’s overtime ban, and its roll on effects.
Customer feedback should not be ignored — it’s an early indicator to start preparing for all potential outcomes to avoid any large-scale impact a known issue may become down the line. Take the 11 January network issues as an example, where over 40 per cent of sentiment towards Sydney Trains was negative as a result of the lack of rail staff to fill the newly introduced timetables.
What eventuated two weeks later was a planned strike due to the need for drivers to work overtime because of a lack of staff. While the Fair Work Commission has ordered NSW rail workers to abandon their 24-hour strike, in most cases, the Fair Work Commission or someone similar won’t be there to step in and help resolve their issues.
If #SydneyTrains can’t keep to a normal schedule without relying on workers’ overtime, something is fundamentally wrong. I’ll support train workers by riding a bike. #SydneyTrainstrike
— Jason L’Ecuyer (@lecuyerjp) January 25, 2018
Reputation management is a 24-hour job, not a side thought. This is especially true when significant economic impacts to a city as populated as Sydney is involved. Investing in active monitoring tools that provide stakeholder insights in real-time could have easily mitigated a full scale crisis — or at the very least, helped prepare for last week’s overtime ban, and its roll on effects.
You can’t manage what you cannot measure
Perhaps it’s a certain reluctance to admit when an issue has become a full-blown crisis, but many businesses continue to prioritise old media first and then look to social media as back-up. The most successful crisis management strategies, however, put equal emphasis on social and traditional media.
The public — and any business — have access to more information than ever to help inform strategic business decisions and prepare for a crisis. Social chatter and conversations are happening in real-time, and often reveal the trending issues that have arisen around a brand. The #SydneyTrains hashtag for example, clearly showed that the trending issue in January were around the pay rise negotiations between the Union and the government (Gladys Berejiklian).
Outside insights is the new digital reality. Listening and reacting to the conversations happening beyond the company’s walls will fundamentally help mitigate a problem before it becomes a crisis.
#SydneyTrains issue is not about the staff but the low staffing & maintenance LEVELS due to the Premier & Transport Minister’s lack of respect for consumers. Staff are not on strike, they are doing their best with very little. Show your disapproval by voting @GladysB out #nswpol
— Jackie McMillan ?️? (@MissDissentEats) January 9, 2018
Modern communication teams in all industries must move away from crisis management to crisis mitigation, or risk missing the tell-tale signs of a rising issue that could have easily been abated.
We are living in the era of two-way transparency, and brands like the NSW government that continue to underestimate the importance of real-time feedback outside of traditional means do so at their own detriment.
David Hickey is director of Meltwater ANZ.
This seemingly ignores the fact this goes beyond a straight marketing issue into politics given its a government issue. Both example you pull out appear to be of ‘left’ leaning individuals who are making as much a political statement in the context of a Liberal government as much as commenting on an actual service problem.
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Hi David, I think you’ve missed the mark in analysing Sydney Trains’ response to the strike. Major government agencies have industrial relations officers that keep track of issues like these and the agency would’ve been monitoring and managing the issue behind the scenes for a long time without checking what punters are tweeting. While monitoring sentiment would’ve informed media strategies, it would’ve been irrelevant to anticipating the strike.
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Hi
Although I found the article very interesting and agreed with most of it, its wrong to say that “What eventuated two weeks later was a planned strike due to the need for drivers to work overtime because of a lack of staff.”
The RTBU had been negotiating with the government for six months regarding their enterprise agreement. The new timetable started on 26 November. The RTBU had used the timetable and overtime as part of their advocacy for more pay – but this was not the reason why industrial action was taken. Their decision to impose an overtime ban was made “following management’s refusal to negotiate a fair and reasonable enterprise agreement,” according to the RTBU media release on 15 January.
Accordingly enhanced social monitoring wouldn’t have tipped off the government that a strike was imminent, or prevented it. This is because the the genesis was driven by the union as part of their negotiations – not customers on social media.
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I agree. There is also a presumption here that large government agencies aren’t using these tools already to analyse sentiment and inform decision making.
While some of David’s sentiments around using tools to view real-time feedback are correct, his conclusions in this instance are not.
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