What are you talking about?

Over the past two days, telecom service provider Airtel has been caught in the crossfire of social media outrage over the widespread perception that it yielded to a bigoted request from one of its customers.

Even as of Wednesday morning, Airtel was on the back-foot over the issue: it put out a statement presenting its side of the matter, but the company’s experience serves as a teachable moment for brands as they navigate the social media minefield in these inflamed political times.

What exactly happened?

One of Airtel’s customers tweeted a service complaint, but when a customer service representative, Shoaib, to whom the complaint had randomly been assigned, responded, she put out a venomous tweet to Airtel saying she did not have faith in Shoaib because of his identity as someone from a religious minority, and asked that her case be reassigned to “a Hindu representative”.

Whoa!

To ask that one’s case be reassigned to another representative on grounds of poor service may perhaps be justifiable. But this was religious bigotry at its worst, which has tragically become commonplace in recent times — and not just in India — particularly on social media platforms where unrestrained toxicity flows.

And Airtel compounded it with its ham-handed response.

What did it do?

Another customer care representative, with a name that may have perhaps been acceptable to the Islamophobic customer, stepped in to take forward the substance of her service complaint, but the optics of the whole episode — of a leading business brand seeming to capitulate to a bigoted customer — perturbed many on Twitter, who called for a consumer boycott of Airtel.

Only hours later did the company respond to say that it does not discriminate among its customers or its employees on the basis of religion. But by then, the brand’s social goodwill had taken a serious knocking.

How else could Airtel have responded?

There are plenty of other instances — in India and abroad — of brands standing firm against religious and racial bigotry even at the risk of losing customers. Cab aggregator Ola’s response in April 2018 in the face of a similar manifestation of Islamophobia among one of its customers was exemplary.

Without missing a beat, Ola tweeted to say that like India, Ola is a secular platform, not given to discrimination on religious or other grounds, and further to urge customers and driver partners to “treat each other with respect”. There are many such ‘best practice’ examples overseas as well.

Tell me more.

Just last year, famous brands, including web domain registrar GoDaddy and torch company Tiki turned down the patronage of white supremacist groups that used their products. Candy company Mars famously disavowed Donald Trump Jr’s unflattering comparison of their Skittles brand of candies to refugees.

And more recently, JW Marriott Dubai ended its relationship with Michelin Star chef Atul Kochhar following his Twitter rant against Islam in the context of US tele-series Quantico ’s depiction of a foiled terrorist attack, in which the perpetrator is seen sporting Hindu symbols of worship.

Bottomline?

If brands are not to lose goodwill in a social media ecosystem where it is easy for businesses to get caught in the political crossfire, they must have an agile presence on these platforms, and not be content with putting out inane, bot-like responses in the way that Airtel initially did.

A weekly column that helps you ask the right questions.

comment COMMENT NOW