Exactly this month four years ago, a man named Jeff Jarvis lamented on his blog of his discontent towards Dell Computers. He colorfully outlined his frustration on both the quality of its product and the customer service he received from the company.

To Jarvis’ surprise, and later Dell’s, that one comment spiraled into one of the biggest customer relations nightmares ever recorded. A swarm of other disgruntled customers came forward and a new jargon term was born: Dell Hell!

Without question, Dell’s carefully-built reputation was severely compromised. In fact, the impact was colossal, and it took Dell more than two years to put out the hellfire.

There was a lot to be learned from the Dell experience, especially with regards to how customer relations have now evolved, thanks to a relatively novel but very powerful and unstoppable ally: the Internet.

Angry customers tell 3,000? Try 300,000 others. This revelation sent shockwaves through companies and service providers around the world, and resulted in endless seminars and countless books to illuminate businesses about this latest phenomena.

Today, Indonesian ventures and service suppliers may have the chance to learn about this first-hand, with Omni International Hospital Tangerang’s handling of one disgruntled customer, Prita Mulyasari.

Prita had been detained for around three weeks and is now facing trial at Tangerang District Court for allegedly defaming the hospital and violating the Criminal Code and Law on the Internet and Electronic Transaction.

Prita’s case began when she wrote personal email narrating an unpleasant experience she encountered during her treatment at the hospital. This email ended up on mailing lists and blogs and soon became a public affair.

Omni Tangerang obviously understood that negative sentiment snowballing on the World Wide Web was bad for business in more ways than one. It subsequently took action to try to put a stop on it. A fair decision, so far. It decided to respond to Prita’s complaint via the mailing list, and even used mass media to express its side of the story. So far, so good. But then, feeling that all these measures were still not enough, Omni decided to sue Prita. Ouch! (for the hospital)

The first rule about controlling “bad” press — which likes to blow up gossip, rumors and the like — is to avoid making the story even bigger than it already is. Suddenly, Prita’s case exploded. More and more people started to forward Prita’s email, or if they couldn’t get Prita’s original email, they forwarded a news article about it. What was once a mere electronic message with questionable reliability, was now beheld as the hidden truth – simply because Omni Tangerang tried to stifle it.

People saw this as confirmation of the credibility behind Prita’s story.

Omni should have done its homework before taking legal action. They could have tried typing “bad hospital Indonesia” into Google, for instance. Omni Tangerang’s name does not even come up in the first three pages of search results, nor in pages and pages after that. But now, with the legal action, more than 40,000 people in Facebook have joined a cause to support Prita. By attempting to sue Prita, Omni achieved exactly what it so desperately wanted to avoid: it made Prita’s complaints louder.

Now, not only has Omni violated the first rule of controlling “bad” press, it has also violated the first rule of controlling online bashing: treat complainers as humans.

Plenty of books and speakers on the new media of customer relations (the Internet) note that one of the most important things to do is remember that even though the outlook is electronic or an avatar, companies are still dealing with a person, so they should act like they are dealing with a person.

As such, remaining humble and conversational is highly recommended in painting a response to the critics.

But again, Omni did exactly the opposite. In resorting to legal action, Omni sent out a message that it was a cold almighty private industry player and Prita was simply a victim of blatant arrogance.

The hospital’s case was worsened further (and perhaps this was just rotten luck) since its adversary happened to be a mother who, since being imprisoned, was prevented from breastfeeding and cuddling her newborn baby.

Imagine the sympathy Prita gained from news of this situation alone! Who would want to go to a hospital that did not care about human suffering?

What Omni Tangerang has just committed is public-relations suicide. But damage control can still be done. Omni can opt to waive the verdict of the civil court and not press for Prita to pay damages or make a public apology as ordered by the court.  

If Omni is still bent on suing defamers, it should start preparing lawsuits against itself.

The writer is the program director of the Association for Critical Thinking (ACT).  This article is her personal opinion.

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