Big Question - July 08

"In terms of managing its PR, what can True Yoga do to overcome negative public sentiment and regain favour following the backlash and members' furor after it closed its Raffles Place Branch?"

True Yoga (TY) is facing serious reputation and trust issues. While expressing furor over the Raffles Place closure, members also used it as a jumping board to raise other issues that range from bad service to terrible communication. Bottomline: Customers feel TY just doesn't care. 

If TY hasn't done so yet, contact each of the 3,000 Raffles Place members to reiterate the options they can pick from. Let the members choose. Don't push -- there's plenty of negative feedback on TY's pushy salespeople out there! 

- A sincere public apology followed by the steps being taken to resolve the situation will demonstrate it is pro-actively working on solutions.
- Staff communication lines (hotline and website) with trained people tooled to respond to complaints/feedback immediately.
- Use all forms of media outlets to update members and the public.
- Retrain staff to make customer care about the heart of its service. A strong internal-and internalized-caring culture would give TY a chance at restoring public trust.
- Work on a new multimedia communications platform with a very strong "We Care" key message. This time, promise what you can deliver and deliver what you promised.

TY needs to shift its focus to customer care to redeem itself, regain public confidence and recoup lost members/revenue.

Debbie R. Coloma
Media consultant
DRC Media Consultancy

The definition of crisis is when a situation occurs that hinders the organisation from operating in its preferred mode, thereby affecting its business performance in the short and long term. Clearly, True Yoga is in crisis and its obvious lack of preparedness to communicate effectively to its stakeholders will have short- and long-term negative consequences.

It starts with identifying the core issue that is generating customer grievances. The real issue is not the lack of timely information about the closure or the poor communications by management. In this case, some customers might have felt that True Yoga has broken an agreement and the proposed solutions are not up to their expectations. While the company can justify its actions through fine prints and legalese of its contracts, the fact is that some customers may feel shortchanged. 

Perception is reality, that's what we need to be mindful of. As such, if True Yoga does not take concrete steps to address this issue head-on, and communicate effectively to redress customer grievances, then the crisis will continue to undermine its brand reputation and business credibility, and ultimately its profitability.

Liew Kim Siong
Director
UpstreamAsia