What Can You Learn from the Disgusting Domino's Video Posted in YouTube

Just to get an idea of the importance of the Social Media to promote or damage the reputation of a business, we only need to look at this example.

In case that you are not familiar with this news, I will summarize them for you:

Two former employees of Domino's Pizza (they've been fired and now Domino's Pizza is pressing legal charges against them) posted a nasty video in YouTube showing how one of them, a man, thought to be an employee putting cheese up his nose and then passing wind on a sandwich. A woman’s voice, thought to be the other employee then says off camera:

In about five minutes it’ll be sent out on delivery where somebody will be eating these, yes, eating them, and little did they know that cheese was in his nose and that there was some lethal gas that ended up on their salami.

It looked like the video showed food that was being delivered and consumed by paying customers of Domino’s.

Of course, this video become viral (meaning that they spread very rapidly, just like a virus) very fast, and before Domino's could react and ask YouTube to remove it (don't bother to look for this video in YouTube anymore, it is not there), more than a million people had a chance to watch it.

Patrick Doyle, the president of Domino's USA had the presence of creating an apology video that he distributed in the same way (via YouTube) to restore the image of the Pizza chain. You can watch his apology video here:



So what can you learn from this unfortunately incident? Two things:

1.- How powerful is the power is Social Media to spread news (good and bad) about a place or event.
2.- How important is that you hire the best people you can afford and train them appropriately.

In these days of instantaneous communication is more important than ever to trust and rely in your people to do the right thing.

Disgruntled employees blog against their employers and tarnish the company's image. Unhappy customers post negative reviews of the restaurants or small business where they had a bad experience...

So what can you do to avoid negative comments against your restaurant? The only possible course of action is to always try to put your clients and employees as your number one priority. Having happy employees transforms into happy customers and great reviews in these sites.

You can't control what people post in the social networks but you can control how to treat your clients and your employees. Focus your energies on them and you'll get great reviews.

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com