HTC Shows How Not to Handle Social Media PR

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By Matt Clark

Taiwanese smartphone maker High Tech Computer (HTC) is learning social media relations the hard way.

In recent months, HTC released a number of popular, high-end handsets that, according to Engadget, were purposely shipped without drivers that would take advantage of video acceleration hardware in the phones, resulting in inferior video quality.Consumers have not responded positively. Mobile-focused online communities, forums and blogs have been buzzing about these problems, along with disturbing customer service feedback they’ve received.A few enthusiasts (who are the most important people in the consumer electronics world) launched HTCClassAction.org on January 16th. The site “…is intended to spread awareness about the issues with recent HTC Smartphones and PocketPCs, and gather information for a possible class action lawsuit against HTC…”According to the site, HTCClassAction had over 32,000 unique visitors and 65,000 page views with in its first seven days. Along with engadget, more than 370 other websites have referenced back to HTCClassAction.org to date. So far, HTC has handled this situation in about as badly possible. Here are a few ways they’ve gone wrong:

• I don’t think they have a PR team. Their Press Room asks all media inquiries to be directed to pr@htc.com. No self-respecting PR firm would let that happen because PR professionals know they have to be the media gatekeeper in case there is a crisis.
• It took HTC six days to issue an official response. What were they doing for six days?! By waiting so long HTC allowed speculation and rumors to spread, and they lost control of the story and their message. This proves that HTC does not believe in the power of social media. If The New York Times broke the story, there would be a response with in 2 hours.
• The official response, as reported by Engadget Mobile, was a “tough luck” statement to their consumers (you can read the entire statement on DailyTech here).
• They never said they were sorry. Even a non-apology - “We’re sorry that our consumers are unhappy” - would have been better than nothing.
• HTC did not post the official response on their Press Room. Rule of thumb - have a press room and put everything on it. Makes it easy for the media…
• HTC claimed their smartphones were “More powerful than any mobile communications device you’ve seen before…” This is egregiously misleading marketing. A Pocketnow discussion forum stated their marketing never lied to the consumer, so therefore HTC doesn’t need to apologize. But it’s not about what legal says you can claim, it’s about what your consumer claims you say.
• By not acting quickly and properly, HTC may have opened a large can of worms for the all smartphone manufacturers. Now consumers from other handsets are starting to complain about similar problems in their handsets.

HTC needs to learn how to work with social media and online communities. They can’t take six days to respond to their consumers and they need to be transparent - by hiding their response they are just another dry corporation that consumers usually reject. Instead of suggesting that consumers will need to upgrade to future products, they should have offered an immediate solution, in the same way Steve Jobs offered early iPhone consumers a rebate after dramatically reducing iPhone prices. That’s not only what I believe, but what the Engadget readers (HTC’s enthusiasts and early adapters) think according to an Engadget poll.To be fair - HTC kept its head down and kept the news moving. InfoWorld and TMCnet covered HTC sales numbers and PC World just published a story today about the HTC Shift. HTC also released a strategic alliance yesterday. None of these stories mentioned the HTCClassAction.org.Ultimately this isn’t as bad as the DELL situation - HTC’s phones aren’t spontaneously combusting. But if HTC doesn’t begin to handle problems like these better, their reputation and business will eventually take a (big) hit.