Homophobia and Coffee - not a good morning mix

     Social media is a huge public relation and advertising tool, but it is also a devastating tool for businesses. This two-edged sword has shown it dangerousness. Recently, the coffee giant, Starbucks had an incident where one of its employees in Centereach New York apparently showed t a homophobia act. 
     The Starbucks customer, Missy Alison, who witnessed the incident called it “one of the most brazen and unapologetic displays of homophobia I have ever witnessed in my entire life.”

     The incident was posted via a blog. The blog spread while a summer wild fire in California. Starbucks posted on its corporate blog a response to the incident; the blog title read, “Our dedication to embrace diversity,” in response to clarify the incident and unacceptable and intolerable incident. 

     The body of the blog read “We are disheartened by the allegations reported in an East Coast Starbucks store and are taking immediate measures to investigate and take any steps necessary to make this right,” wrote Kalen Holmes, the company’s executive vice president of partner resources. “The actions reported do not correspond with our values, who we are as a company or the beliefs we try to instill in our partners.”

     Interesting facts are that Starbucks under the leadership of Kalen Holmes has supported the LGBT community with various programs such as domestic-partner health benefits for employees, and organized and participated in events for local LGBT groups. Starbucks is working with the Human Rights Campaign as well. 
     Starbucks crisis management demonstrates that they took careful examination of the issue and repeatedly stated that such behavior and attitude will not be tolerated. Assuring costumers that they will defend their LGBT costumers and set things right.
     Building a prestigious name takes many years of hard work, but Tweed, Facebook, or Instagram anything and the whole world will know in a matter of seconds and a company's reputation might be destroyed. 

http://reputationonline.co.uk/2010/06/01/an-interesting-example-of-crisis-management-from-starbucks/
http://nrn.com/article/lessons-learned-mcdonald’s-starbucks-incidents