KaBOOM Mitigation

One incident affects the entire industry

Take a blood pressure pill before you watch this video.

Combine a major transportation line incident six weeks ago and a partially informed TV reporter with an emotion-charged topic and you get a negative mix that impacts every gas utility and transportation company in a 300-mile area. [Plus the inevitable bloggers who will repeat the issue nationwide.]

This video also is a classic example of how to handle media inquiries and how NOT to handle them. After you watch this video, let me know how you feel about Shell and HESCO Gathering Company.

If you are not in the industry, how scared would you be?

If you are on a city council or other small government entity, how would you vote on a rate increase?

If next week or next month or next year, you are chosen for a jury listening to a gas-related incident of any kind, how would you be inclined to vote?

But you ARE in the industry. So, what's your company's plan for handling a similar incident? If you don't have a crisis management plan, now is the time to create one. Don't you wish everyone in the industry had one?

How many mistakes can you find in this news story?

I don't know whether this blog is about natural gas crisis management or the quality of the news story. I'm leaning to the latter.

For sure, however, the gas company has a wonderful opportunity to help educate the reporter, and ultimately the general public/consumers. Let's hope they do.

BTW, check out Source Gas's Website--very user-friendly.

Be prepared for questions about protecting consumer data

Recent testimony in a wrongful firing arbitration led to Milwaukee-based WE Energies coming under news media scrutiny for policies, or lack thereof, relating to employees gaining improper access to consumer data.

According to the Associated Press, the WE Energies database includes credit and banking information, payment histories, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and energy usage. In some cases, it even includes income and medical information.

Information about a mayoral candidate leaked to the press showed he often was late paying bills. The company took quick action, fired the employee who leaked the information, and set up a visit with the mayor candidate (who blamed his loss on the leaked info). As a result of admitting the problem and taking quick, decisive action, the erstwhile mayor dropped plans to file a lawsuit.

But the problem continues--17 employees fired as of March.

If you are monitoring the news and blogs like this one, you should consider yourself adequately warned: be prepared to answer questions from your news media, and perhaps your regulatory agencies and elected officials, about how you protect consumer data info. Please don't answer with a patently transparent answer like this one:

"Jim Owen, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a lobbying association that represents utilities, disputed suggestions the problem was common in the industry. 'I am not aware of any other situation that has arisen in the utility sector,' he said."

Oh, puh-leeze. Doesn't he ever talk to the utilities he represents?

Another utility rep handled the issue better, saying his company, Valiant Energy [can anyone find a Website for this utility?], has procedures in place to prevent employee snooping, but declined to specify them. Hmm.... Well, it's still a better answer than the lobbyist's.

How will you answer the question?

Watch your blog!

It only takes a matter of hours for your company's reputation to be hit by a blogger. Their take on a situation will be a lot less charitable than even your most skeptical reporter. Plaintiff attorneys are pros at blogging/bragging about their wins. And you need to know what they're saying.

Are you monitoring the blogosphere? If not, you won't even know what hit you.

Email me and I'll give you a really simple solution.

Unlimited reasons for hitting lines

Putting in a fence. Setting a basketball backstop. Installing lawn irrigation. And the ever-popular tree planting.

What can gas companies do to cut down on these incidents? Safety advertising, yes. But how's that working for you?

I'm thinking it's time to start with the children. Remember Fireman Bill who came to school to teach us to drop and roll? What about a school-based campaign to teach kids to be aware of buried gas lines? Oh, I just answered my own question. If you told my boys about buried gas lines in the yard, they'd start digging just to see for themselves. Nevermind.

But what about mercaptan Scratch 'N Sniff? And what to do when you smell that yucky smell at home? I think that would make a difference. Maybe not right away, but it's education to build on.

Please, don't do what one company did. They sent the Scratch 'N Sniff as bill stuffers. Practically every post office in their service area was evacuated!

Court of public opinion can head off courtroom damages

A gas company employee following the letter of his training, but without exercising concurrent common sense, is charged with causing millions of dollars in damages. What can his employer say or do in his defense or defense of their employee?

So far, nothing, it seems. A check of the company's Website makes no mention of the incident, and the news story leaves the impression that the employee is turning slowly in the wind.

Here's a chance for the company to step forward to accept responsibility for its employee. The silence likely is because company attorneys know staff will be deposed and subpoenaed for the trial. Attorneys tend to approach incidents like this with a "say nothing" approach. Crisis communications counselors advise getting out with an appropriate message right away.

The first message delivered is the one remembered. All others have to try to dispute that message. If the gas company issued an apology and explanation of what happened, they would be in a better position in court. Judging by the comments posted on the newspaper comments to this article, the public has no sympathy for the company.

How's that gonna work for the company when it goes for a rate increase?