Anything but "Fancy," the recent behavior of a Papa John’s delivery employee left mainstream hip-hop star Iggy Azalea extremely dissatisfied.
And even though she was in contention for key awards like Record of the Year and Best New Artist at Sunday’s 57th Annual Grammy Awards Ceremony, Azalea devoted ample Twitter focus to her troublesome customer experience. By Monday, it represented her sole item of public conversation.
The issue? Upon receiving a delivery from Papa John’s, the Grammy nominee began receiving text messages from an individual claiming to be the delivery driver’s sibling (and an Azalea fan). The driver had apparently distributed her personal number without permission.
"@PapaJohns was my favorite pizza but the drivers they use give out your personal phone number to their family members," wrote Azalea just hours before CBS commenced its annual Grammys broadcast.
Fear of Social
If the prospect of social complaints going viral strikes fear in businesses like Papa John’s, a rant like Azalea’s should have theoretically represented an absolute nightmare. In coming from an immensely popular celebrity with 4.2 million Twitter followers and a proclivity for attracting mainstream media attention, Azalea’s story was not going to fade quietly into the night.
That this particular influencer seemed to have a very legitimate gripe – a company distributed her private contact information – added to the potential for reputational damage.
Based on Papa John’s lack of a worthwhile public response – and apparent struggle to privately rectify the matter for Azalea – it failed to recognize the consequences of a social customer complaint. It also demonstrated an implicit degree of indifference to the privacy breach that precipitated the complaint.
Save for a tone-deaf reference to one of Azalea’s songs ("@iggyazalea #We should have known better. Customer and employee privacy is important to us. Please don’t #bounce us!"), Papa John’s offered no public response – substantive or otherwise. A major, influential celebrity accused a Papa John’s employee of distributing her personal information, and the organization made no sincere, meaningful effort to publicly acknowledge the issue, reiterate its commitment to customer privacy and establish an action plan for regaining the trust of its customers.
Per Azalea, the organization also failed to appropriately resolve the issue behind-closed-doors.
Azalea’s request for a picture of the driver (presumably to warn her team of a potential stalker and potentially to share his photo with others who might encounter the unethical delivery driver), Papa John’s refused to comply.
"And the supervisors at @PapaJohns refuse to send pictures of their employess [sic] so you can identify who it is that steals your information," added the rapper. "You know, to protect their privacy... Too bad they don't value the privacy of their customers also. #DamnShame."
While Azalea’s request might seem extreme on the surface, it makes sense from a logic and safety standpoint (and from an "age of the customer" standpoint – a customer feels what a customer feels). It also adheres to a recent celebrity trend of outing those guilty of egregious privacy invasions. Singers Lorde and Katy Perry recently shared photos of paparazzi they deemed threatening.
But even if Papa John’s felt itself unable to legally and/or ethically comply with Azalea’s request, it allegedly gave no indication of an overarching commitment to winning back her satisfaction and trust.
"I just want answers & they have none," Tweeted a growingly frustrated Azalea, who later added, "When an employee steals information it's called data breach. It's illegal. There are steps a corporation is supposed to follow afterward."
In a published text exchange with the rapper, an individual identified as a Papa John’s supervisor tells Azalea that the employee was "on his way home to speak with his parents and sister." That Papa John’s effectively wrote the matter off as the type of mistake that could be rectified by the employee talking with his parents—and telling his sister not to send Azalea additional texts—not only reflects its failure to understand the significance of the situation but its failure to understand the significance of its customer’s outrage.
Between its wry Twitter response and its apparent lack of private action, Papa John’s demonstrated an utter lack of empathy and sympathy. The issue that had a famous, Grammy-nominated singer sharing a story about pizza delivery with 4 million followers on the night of the Grammys seemingly did not mean much to a company that is supposed to put its customers above all.
Want a Resolution? "Beg for It"
Still without a resolution, Azalea continued her rant on Monday.
"They are a company that retains your address, name, number & CREDIT card information, expiration cvc number etc," added Azalea. "A lot of damage can be done if that falls into the wrong hands, we give them this information with the expectation it remains confidential.
"When an employee steals information it's called data breach. It's illegal. There are steps a corporation is supposed to follow afterward… They don't include tweeting out song lyrics to the customer making the complaint, it's really unprofessional. I want a real answer."
To provide additional illustration for the issue, Azalea likened the scenario to a T-mobile employee getting one’s number from a bill and "calling [him] over and over."
"You'd expect a real resolution via the company," continued Azalea. "You wouldn't expect a tweet that said something like ‘uh oh! Don't let him use up all your minutes girl!’ From the company. You wouldn't expect the supervisor to say ‘don't worry! His mom has spoken with him!’"
"And you'd probably want to get a new credit card too," added Azalea, implying that she might have to acquire a new credit card (and presumably phone number) in the wake of the breach.
Even though each Tweet commanded at least 900 re-Tweets and was surely seen by hundreds of thousands of individuals, Papa John’s hesitated to publicly respond.
"I want answers @papajohns why is customer confidentiality a joke to your company?"
When the company eventually did respond, it continued to operate under a cloud of ambiguity and generality.
"Privacy of our customers and employees is extremely important to us," said the restaurant in a statement posted by The Hollywood Reporter. "Papa John's has taken appropriate disciplinary action with regard to the employee involved. We are reaching out directly to Ms. Azalea and hope to resolve this incident and make it right."
What did the discipline entail? What steps has Papa John’s taken to prevent a similar issue from arising in the future? How will it "make it right" for Azalea? Why is it so intent on stressing the importance of employee privacy when the matter involves an employee sharing private customer data? Exactly whom was Papa John’s attempting to satisfy?
Papa John’s declined to elaborate on Twitter. It, instead, asked Azalea for a follow so that it could communicate with her via direct message.
Azalea’s next and (thus far) final Tweet on the matter expressed ongoing concern about Papa John’s disciplinary approach.
"I’m happy to pay for pizza I just don’t want to order it & have the same employee at my home again because he wasn't fired," wrote Azalea.
While some Papa John’s apologists might utilize her specific request for the employee’s picture as a straw man, it is clear that the restaurant’s effort, on the whole, was a disaster.
An Illustration of Failure
Here are the clear grounds on which Papa John’s failed.
Publicly Unresponsive: That a celebrity with 4 million followers—and the support of thousands of re-Tweeters—could not command a meaningful, resolute response upon first sharing her complaint sends a terrible message about Papa John’s’ support function. If someone with Azalea’s social footprint effectively needs to beg Papa John’s to engage, why should a lay customer feel his experience would represent a priority?
Publicly Dismissive: In offering generic commentary—and a joke—in its first public response, the restaurant chain greatly undermined any notion of its customer-centricity.
The Tweet questioned the extent to which Papa John’s truly understood the magnitude of the problem. Customer data breach is certainly not a joke.
It questioned the extent to which Papa John’s cares about customer sentiment. Even if the issue were less overtly harmful – such as receiving American bacon instead of Canadian bacon or single pepperoni instead of double pepperoni – it is the customer, not the business, society or even common sense that determines the significance. Because Azalea cared deeply, Papa John’s needed to care deeply.
It also questioned the value of communicating in a social forum. If this is the kind of response a legitimate complaint warrants, does this really count as a support channel?
More broadly, it questioned the value of Papa John’s’ support process. If a business operates with no senses of empathy, sympathy or gravity, can it really satisfy customer support matters?
Culturally Improper: In stressing that "happy agents yield happy customers," thought leaders are declaring that efforts to improve employee happiness are valuable because they result in increased customer happiness. Customer satisfaction is still the end goal.
In dancing around the consequences awaiting the employee, Papa John’s, in this case, was driving employee happiness at the expense of customer happiness. Azalea’s request for a driver photo might have been unreasonable in certain eyes, but the expectation that the organization take swift, serious action against the employee is not. By offering any sense of hesitancy or ambiguity about whether it intended to do so, Papa John’s communicated that it would rather deal with customer fall-out than employee fall-out.
Repeatedly touting an irrelevant commitment to "employee" privacy in this completely inappropriate circumstance sent the same message. Instead of broadcasting its employee commitment to the world, Papa John’s should have been broadcasting its customer commitment to its employees. It should have let them know that the customer’s privacy – and happiness – is the primary objective.
Not doing so – and actually belittling the issue on Twitter – sent the opposite message. It established a culture that trivializes customer satisfaction and the employee actions that drive that dissatisfaction. It presented the attitude that allows agents to feel justified in ending "rude calls," transferring "difficult" ones and engaging with a tone of disrespect.
Strategically Misguided: Temporarily ignore the notion of "thinking like a customer." Think like a business.
Would you really allow your business to come under this sort of fire – with no answer or action plan – in an open marketplace? Do you really want the notion that you disrespect customer privacy to gain even a hint of traction?
Papa John’s poorly conceived social strategy was not simply a failure under the idealistic notion of customer centricity. It was also a failure under the concept of business centricity.
It even opened the door for the DiGiorno frozen pizza brand, which proudly declares "It’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno" to mock Papa John’s customer experience failure.
".@IGGYAZALEA delivery. smh," Tweeted the brand.
While the Tweet possessed humor, it worked in context. DiGiorno was a brand mocking one that showed a lack of respect for a customer. It was not the brand that disrespected the customer.
The comment ended up receiving 15,000 re-Tweets.
Saving Grace
If a saving grace exists for Papa John’s, it is Iggy Azalea’s polarizing persona. Frequently criticized for appropriating culture and for her tendency to use social media as a complaint platform, Azalea has lost the respect and support of key online influencers.
While the involvement of a celebrity assured the issue became a high-profile one, it also dampened some sympathy. Ignoring the employee’s irrefutable privacy and ethics breach, numerous social media users alleged that Azalea was to blame for giving out her personal phone number and for, presumably, accepting the delivery personally. The same absurd logic is commonly used when addressing celebrity scandals. The celebrities who took sexual photos, some argued, were more to blame for the iCloud "Fappening" scandal than the hackers who unlawfully stole and distributed them.
"They should know better." As in, they should assume the businesses they trust with their private information are going to breach that privacy.
Moreover, issues like Azalea’s can exist in the non-celebrity world. Two years ago, Jezebel ran a story about how a Domino’s driver attempted to court an attractive female customer to whom he had previously delivered food. He texted his thoughts using the number from her order. He did not establish consent to use that number.
If Papa John’s and its employee are not held wholly accountable, customer data will not be wholly protected.