Business reputation

by Karen Friedman on April 19, 2017 Leave a Comment

Op-ed: What United Airlines should have done – What everyone is missing

A lot has been written about the recent United Airlines public relations disaster and most of the so-called Monday morning quarterbacks are correct in their assessments of what should have been done. After a video of 69-year-old Dr. David Dao being violently dragged from his seat went viral, I agree that United CEO Oscar Munoz waited far too long to apologize to the passenger and take responsibility for what happened.

When he finally did speak publicly, it was about United when it should have been about passenger safety and making sure something like this doesn’t happen again.
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by Karen Friedman on April 11, 2015 Leave a Comment

Lessons learned from a vendor/customer email war

I don’t take pleasure in firing vendors or anyone for that matter though this may be the exception. ‘Michael’ handled our payroll for years. Every year, I watched our fees go up with no advance notice or explanation so I inquired as to why his rates were outpacing inflation.

I was told it’s because he has the “best payroll staff in the industry” and therefore he increases their pay each year. He went on to say that he was competitive and customers who have left him often came back because other firms “typically screwed things up.” Annoyed, I dashed off a terse email to our CFO saying that’s the kind of thing people say when they don’t have a real reason and then I hit send a bit too quickly. Only I accidentally sent it to Michael. [Read more…] about Lessons learned from a vendor/customer email war

by Karen Friedman on March 3, 2015 Leave a Comment

Of Goofing Up and Forgiveness

Oops, I goofed. This is a textbook case of what not to do when you’re annoyed. It went something like this.

One of our vendors sent us an invoice that reflected a price increase. Looking back at the invoices, I noticed that he does this every year, yet his annual sock-it-to-the-customer hikes were far outpacing inflation. So we inquired why.

by Karen Friedman on February 12, 2015 Leave a Comment

Op-Ed: Lessons to be learned from Brian Williams

I was a reporter for WPVI ABC TV Philadelphia when Brian was at WCAU TV Philadelphia. We occasionally competed on stories. Because I recall Brian as one of the best journalists I have come across, I was quite upset at the suspension and what has transpired. Yet, I understand it and think NBC did the right thing. [Read more…] about Op-Ed: Lessons to be learned from Brian Williams