Chipotle Uses Social Media To Combat Hepatitis Scare

When my neighborhood Chipotle restaurant, where my wife and I had been eating every week for years, was linked to a hepatitis outbreak, the company turned to social networks as a part of a campaign to rehabilitate its reputation. I ended up respecting the fast-food chain for its conscientious business practices and innovative use of social media for marketing and public relations. But, unfortunately, that didn't make me want to return to Chipotle.Last month, people in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, Calif., started coming down with Hepatitis A. The connection: They'd all eaten at one particular branch of Chipotle, a national chain of burrito shops known for big portions and chunky guacamole. Health officials tested all 26 employees of that Chipotle, but found that none of them had hepatitis. Still, my wife and I found this story alarming. We'd been eating take-out from that same Chipotle -- the one linked to the hepatitis cases -- for years.

So we started looking for an alternate source of burritos, and I wrote about it on my blog: Not getting hepatitis is one of the main things I look for in a restaurant.

Now, this is my personal blog. It's a place where I post non-technology-related essays, photos, comments on books, movies, and TV shows, and such. I do post links there to all my major InformationWeek articles and blogs, but it's not affiliated with InformationWeek or its parent company. And it has about a dozen or two dozen regular readers. It's a really, really small blog.

So I was surprised to get this response three days later:

I e-mailed a response back to Joe:

We ended up having a nice e-mail exchange, which I'll reproduce here, lightly edited. Joe responded:

Me: "Are you doing other things to try to use the Internet to get the word out? Using Facebook, Twitter, etc.?"

Joe:

Me:

This is what I was referring to with Dell's use of social media to turn around its reputation: "Dell is pioneering Web 2.0 and social networks to transform its business, trying to turn around a reputation for terrible customer service that Dell has been struggling with for several years. The strategy is controversial -- while Dell touts its successes, a couple of Dell customers I've talked to say customer service is still rotten."

Joe responded:

Me:

Joe:

Me:

Joe: "Well, it's obviously much more personal, and I know that's cliché, but it's true. People feel that a big company is speaking to them directly (and we are), and hopefully realize that we actually care. Traditional media is great, but with all the massive amounts of media out there, sometimes the messages we or anyone tries to send through traditional channels get lost in the clutter and the noise. Sometimes it's better to go it one person at a time, like we do through our website communication, too."

I wished Joe luck and he responded: "Same to you. I'll let you know if we hear anything further on this. My personal suspicion is that they may never figure out what caused this or if it was even us."

I have to confess something here: I waited nearly three weeks to post this story because I wanted to give it a happy ending. I wanted to say how Joe's great use of social media had convinced me to go back to Chipotle, and tell all my friends and family, and how we're eating there every week now, just like before. After all, we'd been eating at Chipotle for years, and had no ill health effects -- we didn't have any hepatitis symptoms. The food is great, the ingredients are fresh, the staff is friendly and efficient, and the place is always -- always -- scrupulously clean, every time we go. Our friends who eat there say the same thing.

And we did go back -- once. The food was fine. But it was like eating sand -- because all we could think as we were eating was don't think about the hepatitis don't think about the hepatitis don't think about the hepatitis. We haven't been back again. That's not fair, and it's not Chipotle's fault, and it's not entirely rational, but it's how we feel. I don't know if we'll ever go back. Maybe in a few years.

So I guess the moral of the story is that marketing and customer relationship management isn't all-powerful, even if you sprinkle social media magic fairy dust on it. Sometimes you do everything right, and you still lose a customer. And a company's reputation can be injured irrevocably through just plain bad luck.

But that's just my family's story. How's Chipotle doing since the hepatitis outbreak? Well, when I went in to the affected branch, business looked pretty good, about the same as that time on any Monday night.

Searches for "chipotle" on Google, Google News, and Google Blog Search turned up mostly neutral or positive references to the restaurant, (although the search did turn up this article about a separate outbreak of digestive disease linked to a Chipotle in Ohio). So it doesn't look like there's any kind of rumor campaign against Chipotle as a result of the hepatitis.

The stock price is down significantly from a high of 117.84 on April 22 to a close of 95.42 on Friday, while the NYSE itself was up during the same period. But I can't find any evidence that the stock decline was due to the report of a hepatitis outbreak at a single store (along with a separate outbreak in Ohio). And with the economy as shaky as it is, I think it's more likely that Chipotle's stock price woes are a result of the general malaise, rather than the hepatitis outbreak.

In the end, I don't think the Chipotle chain was hurt by the hepatitis outbreak -- so long as the incident doesn't repeat itself. And I don't think Joe's blog campaign had much impact on the company's reputation, either. Still, I think Joe did the right thing here. When people are saying bad things about your company on blogs, you should be out there responding. In the age of social media, it's just basic good business, like washing your hands after you leave the bathroom if you're a food worker (or even if you're not).

And that brings my story to a close -- except for one question. Does anybody know where to find a good, San Francisco-style burrito in San Diego?