Industry professionals should prepare for an appropriate response if angry customers stage an Internet confrontation over poor service. The document discusses examples where dissatisfied customers created critical websites about companies like Bally's Total Fitness and Dunkin' Donuts. It advises that companies address customer complaints respectfully to resolve issues before they escalate online. Companies should also improve online customer service and encourage all feedback to identify problems early. Litigation should only be a last resort, as addressing complaints respectfully can disarm situations and build goodwill.

1. By William]. Brown
te in~da r
n~he nternet
Industry
professionals should
prepare for an
appropria te response
if angry customers stage
a confrontation over
the Internet.
I
What do Bally's Total Fit~lss cotporation, Terminix Interna-
tional, the Ford M~tor companyzand Dunkin' Donuts have in
common? All haJ~ dZisco~eredle power of the Internet being
used against them.
While <?re;;'tinga new channel for companies to improve
communications/(('ith thei!customers, the Internet also has
~ created n~aild equa~/PowerfUI ways for dissatisfied cus-
~s.-ana people with unscrupulous motives to complain to a
worldwide audience/Such individuals have created Web sites to
gripe about ~r1rustrations or accounts of personal and col-
le?,atiVe experiences with a number of companies.
___ ----·,-yO U're Not
- Untouchable
In 1998, Andrew S. Faber of Long Beach, California, turned to
the Internet to rail against Bally's Total Fitness Corporation, the
largest for-profit fitness chain in America, with more than three
million members. Faber launched his Web site, Bally's
Sucks, after becoming disenchanted about his
treatment as a customer. The home page con-
tains Bally's federally trademarked logo and,
directly beneath, the word "sucks" in a
spray-painted style. Also on the site are
stinging criticism of the corporation and
its products and services, and dozens of
complaints posted by consumers. More
than 30 major newspapers and maga-
zines have publicized Bally's Sucks as an
example of an extreme customer-service
disaster.
After requesting cease-and-desist action
from Faber, Baily'S filed suit in November of
1998, claiming that his actions constituted trademark
infringement, dilution, and unfair competition. The court dis-
agreed, asserting Faber's First-Amendment rights to free
speech.
According to attorney Martin H. Samson of the Law Firm of
Phillip Snizer, "Perhaps the most significant aspect of the
court's ruling is its determination that a party who builds a
non-commercial website Isicl to promote consumer criticism of
an entity can use that entity'S trademark in the meta tags of his
site to attract users to it." (Full text available at www.phillipsniz-
er.com/int-art 129.htm). Meta tags are devices that many search
engines use to help Web surfers find Internet sites. Furthermore,
the court concluded that the average consumer was not likely to
be confused by Faber's use of the "Bally" mark or assume that
the Web site was created or authorized by Baily's Total Fitness.
Marchi April 2000
This ruling has ominous ramifications for companies con-
cerned with their Internet brand image. Other firms that have
since seen their federally trademarked logos or brands used in
similar ways include the biggest termite and pest-control fran-
chiser, Terminix International; and Ford Motor Company. Ter-
minix and Ford filed suits similar to Baily's. The Ford suit has
been thrown out; the Terminix case is pending.
Can't Beat 'Em,
So Join 'Em
In 1997, David Felton of Connecticut launched a Web site -
DunkinDonuts.org - highly critical of the Dunkin' Donuts unit
of Allied Domecq pic. His gripe? Once, he couldn't get skim
milk for his coffee at a local franchise. After he began posting
complaints to his own Web site, other dissatisfied customers
started e-mailing their complaints to him. Felton then regis-
tered the DunkinDonuts.org Web address and created a stand-
alone site that received thousands of visitors from around
the world.
Instead of filing suit, Dunkin' Donuts pur-
chased the web site from Felton. (According
to The Wall Street Journal, negotiations start-
ed at $1,070, and went up modestly from
there.) Management deemed the cus-
tomer feedback extremely useful, and
continued to operate the site without
Felton's participation. (Later, the compa-
ny rolled the .org site into its .com corpo-
rate site.) Thus, the management of
Dunkin' Donuts disarmed a potentially
embarrassing public-relations situation,
saved money by averting a protracted legal battle
with negative precedents, and demonstrated to the
public that they valued negative feedback and built tremen-
dous good will in the eyes of their customers. This episode
yielded widespread favorable publicity in newspapers and
trade journals.
Lessons For
Vacation Ownership
For vacation-ownership developers, too, the web can help
boost sales, but also can very quickly turn critical. Several of the
examples above have been discussed in the American Resort
Development Association's subcommittee on Internet regula-
tion, chaired by Susan Voss of the Holland & Knight law firm.
Because the vacation-ownership industry depends so
heavily on customer contact and positive experiences, and
II

2. because nobody is perfect, derogation may
be inevitable. Industry professionals should
prepare for an appropriate response if angry
customers stage a confrontation over the
Internet. Here are some suggestions:
• Don't try to register every possible ver-
sion of your name. Through Network Solu-
tions (www.networksolutions.com) and other
domain registrars, companies can register
their unique Web addresses, provided other
parties have not done so already. Still, some
creative individual easily can pair your brand
name with a derogatory word or phrase, as
occurred with BallysSucks.com. Attempting
to register every imaginable combination
(at $70 each) would be prohibitively expen-
sive, and you still wouldn't cover every pos-
sible combination. Throw in the added
costs of .net and .org, and the numbers start
getting very large. Instead, just register your
core brand names and build them into cus-
tomer-focused extensions of your offline
businesses.
• Customerscomplain when they'reangry.
Cyberspace amplifies their ability to tell more
people why they are angry, but don't look at
these situations as technology challenges.
They remain customer-service challenges.
Does the individual complaining about your
company have a legitimate reason to be
upset? Even if the customer is wrong, can
you take reasonable steps to resolve the dis-
pute before the creation of a Web site publi-
cizes the situation?
• They've turned my brand into
"Mycompany'Sucks.com." What do J do
now? Try to resolve the situation peaceful-
ly. Remember that people complain until
someone listens to them. Many such situ-
ations can be disarmed with a simple let-
ter of apology and some token gesture of
goodwill on the company's behalf. Use
cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits only
as extreme fallback measures.
• Beef up your online customer-service
function. The real-time nature of the Inter-
net does not know operational constraints
- nor should your online customer-service
support function. Staff it around the clock,
and give it a mechanism for posting feed-
back as Dunkin' Donuts did, so your cus-
tomers won't turn elsewhere to express
their feelings. Encourage both good and
bad feedback. Identifying problems early
can help you solve them before they get
blown out of proportion.
• Treat your complaint-makers with
respect.Remember that nine out of 10 people
12 www.re6ortdeve!oper.com
that "your customers are only satisfied
because their expectations are so low and
because no one else is doing better. Just
having satisfied customers isn't good
enough anymore. If you really want a
booming business, you have to turn your
customers into raving fans."
The vacation-ownership industry has
come very far in raising the standards of
customer and membership services. The
Internet may create new challenges, but the
goals remain the same. The lessons we can
learn from others should help us to defuse
such situations ifthey ever happen to us.
The lessons
we can learn
from others
should help us
to defuse such
situations if
they ever
happen to us.
William J. Brow i diFgGtgr-Qf-~ ommerce
_ ~-trrteractive marketing for Interval Inter-
simply want someone to listen to them.~ ~a,tional. He earned a Master of Business
oblige - contact them immediat~pon Administration degree from Drexel University
learning of their dissatisfaction, ask what is in Philadelphia and has completed course-
troubling them, institute effect0e systems if work towards an Executive Master in Tech-
such systems don't alread{exist, and make nology Management through the Wharton
every reasonable eff~ accommodate the School of Business. He also is an adjunct pro-
aggrieved individuals. lessor of the University of Miami School of
In the book RGvingFans:A Revolutionary B.rtsrrleSs,;he~~s-g.r~e classes
Approach to zrlstomer Service, author~- involving strategic use of the Intern~is
neth Blanchard and Harvey MacK v argue e-maii addressiswbrown@interval-intl.com~
VACATlbN INDUSTRY I__ Ill__