Some thoughts on where #Eurostar's communications went wrong

There are plenty of people rushing to judge Eurostar this weekend. The headline on TechCrunch is almost comical – “As hundreds of Eurostar passengers languish, Eurostar ignores Twitter.” On the face of it, it’s rather like saying “As shelves run dry of food, Tesco ignores Susan Boyle.” It’s quite random. TechCrunch’s view of the issue is pretty narrow (as this post from We are social shows.)

The whole communications effort could have been better, and the speed of the social media response is just one symptom – hopefully Eurostar will take some lessons away from this weekend.

Where did Eurostar go wrong?

  • It’s worth saying that when it comes to PR, Eurostar were unlucky – as ever there’s not a lot of news around at Christmas, and this is a big story which is relatively low effort / low cost to cover.  Dramatic though it is, is it really a bigger story than a vulnerable toddler being abducted from a police station? Personally I don’t believe so – but there are unfortunately a lot of angry passengers in the Eurostar story who are able to keep the story running.
  • It sounds like there was confusion in Eurostar HQWe are social’s Robin Grant describes grabbing the chief executive for a minute “in between various crisis meetings”, and being sat alongside the Sales and Marketing Director.  In a situation as fast moving and high profile as this, the key people could have worked better together if they had been co-located in one room. It would have been good to see Eurostar’s crisis team validate or update their corporate message every thirty minutes, while managing the operational challenge.
  • I think Eurostar could have picked a better core message – the explanation offered about changes in temperature affecting the trains left more questions than answers. Over time it looked like the company didn’t know what was causing the breakdowns, so it would have been more credible to say “we don’t know what’s happened to the trains, but we’re working as fast as possible to understand it.” There was also an attempt to move too quickly to the final stage of the comms plan – the review and compensation line – when practical operational comms to passengers was needed.
  • Eurostar could have used a different spokesperson – I remember watching The Bottom Line on BBC News earlier this year and thinking that Richard Brown came across as a great business leader who had built a formidable operation.  It doesn’t necessarily follow that he’s the best spokesperson for the company in a crisis, as I think the video below shows. The delivery could have been more confident, and the subliminal messages (eg how the picture has been framed)  don’t shout “we have lots of staff working to fix this, and we’re in control.”
  • Finally, and most seriously, Eurostar’s internal communications structures, and their face to face communication with customers appear to have failed. Staff weren’t visible to customers, and those staff who were dealing with customers followed different procedures and gave conflicting messages, and the people who needed the most communication – those in the broken down trains – were the people who received the least.An urgent review is needed to establish crisis comms protocols for staff which rectify the  situation which Robin Grant describes as being unable “to communicate with their own staff on board when the train is in the tunnel as all safety regulations and operational responsibility sit firmly with Eurotunnel.” Assuming that is true, EuroTunnel’s procedures would seem to have cost Eurostar hundreds of thousands of pounds in customer loyalty and brand damage. Their press release titled “EuroTunnel rescues Eurostar” (PDF) will need  a robust reply.

Where do Eurostar go from here?

In short:

  • Rapidly and transparently announce the likely cause of the fault when it is established, and how it can be mitigated. Put the media and some key social media critics on a successful test run and make the engineers visible.
  • Proactively reach their customers with any further news on all comms channels – by text message, email, face to face and yes, social media.
  • Look after the passengers – free food and drink at St Pancras and Ebbsfleet. Passengers are talking to the media all the time and no part of the message coming from them is “Eurostar are doing their best to look after us.”
  • Use a broader range of spokespeople  – most board level leaders with media skills can fulfil this role.
  • Talk to past customers directly – I receive Eurostar marketing emails as a previous customer, and as a potential future customer I have now have concerns about using the service in cold weather – use that marketing data to drive reassurance and reputation rebuilding comms

I do have sympathy for Eurostar’s comms team – it sounds from the outside like they simply lacked any facts to communicate beyond the number of broken down trains. In the long term that internal comunications challenge is the most serious issue to address.

If you’re reading this and you work in Eurostar comms, I hope your Christmas gets better from here on!

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9 Responses to “Some thoughts on where #Eurostar's communications went wrong”

  1. Eurostar demostrate the perils of not joining up marketing with customer service and PR | Mark Pack said:

    Dec 20, 09 at 1:33 pm

    [...] 2: Rob Fenwick also has a good post on the wider communications issues faced by Eurostar. Share with [...]

  2. eurostarclient said:

    Dec 20, 09 at 4:44 pm

    Rob, good analysis.
    I actually think the situation has been extremely serious during the first night, with 2000 people stuck underwater with no lights and no food and justified even more media attention. It also justified a quick and efficient media plan to maintain families and relatives up to date, and this did not happen. After the emergency, reassurance and a sense of control is what the PR teams should have established, and this did not happen.
    As you say, the internal communication structures are to blame even before blaming specific agents or Twitter.
    Daniele

  3. Eurostar – part deux from Jeremy Jacobs Host Presenter said:

    Dec 20, 09 at 9:59 pm

    [...] cold is making this the laziest of posts. Here’s a couple of takes on the Eurostar story: Rob Fenwick’s view of the Eurostar communication failure and this piece by Christian [...]

  4. Anders said:

    Dec 21, 09 at 1:56 pm

    This Eurostar incident reminds me of my time at Midland Mainline (MML) when we had our “nine hour journey from hell” from London to Nottingham: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1376146/Passengers-vent-their-fury-after-2hr-train-ride-takes-all-night.html

    Train companies often have really good comms teams, but for some reason when a real disaster strikes it just collapses as operations issues overtake comms. In the MML incident the issue there was frontline staff on train not knowing what was going on and no one thinking that in these circumstances you should do whatever you can to put it right for the customer, rather than following what would be the normal procedures.

    As Richard Brown is a former MD of MML (although not at the time of this incident), maybe there’s a pattern emerging here though :-)

  5. Eurostar Cancels A Few Trains... Calm Down World! said:

    Dec 21, 09 at 7:14 pm

    I completely agree with this article. It IS completely random. JEEZ, Twitterfreaks, not everyone has an account, and is further so addicted they need to check it before calling their friends or family.

    Let’s not forget that earlier on this year Eurostar services were the only ones that WERE running. And it’s a good thing the trains cut out on the ground, unlike the air travel services which are equally affected by the weather! I know for a fact that they’ve already started modifications on the Eurostar shields and are due to resume service as soon as today or tomorrow.

  6. Anthony McLean said:

    Dec 22, 09 at 12:37 am

    Eurostar was NOT BLIND-SIDED here.
    14 months ago, they faced identical Communications/Crisis management/ PR challenges following the chunnel fire.
    Bottom Line : They failed to react and ignored those lessons.
    This is the price that must be paid.

  7. Scott Gould said:

    Dec 23, 09 at 12:03 pm

    Rob,

    A very good deconstruction of the situation which I’ve linked too. I completely agree that is a problem with their communications infrastructure, and is a stern warning to everyone else.

  8. Rich Baker - Digital Engagement said:

    Dec 24, 09 at 11:01 am

    Great post Rob. I was responsible for setting up the Virgin Trains twitter account in my time there, and whilst I couldn’t respond every single time, I did demonstrate effective use of the medium to inform and reassure customers. BTW – totally agree with your point about the video too!

  9. 4 Flaws To Learn From Eurostar – A Social Media Case Study said:

    Jan 02, 10 at 12:31 am

    [...] problem as opposed to a Social Media problem at BrandRepublic, Digital Stuffing and at Rob Fenwick’s blog, with thanks to Mack Pack for pointing me there with his good summarising post. My aim is to [...]


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