America's Most Despised Companies
Picture this: you're the top dog at a large company. One day your VP of corporate communications pops into your office with a terrified look on her face. Your company has just shown up on a list of the 15 Most Hated Companies in America. A redux on Business Insider gets 200,000 views in 5 days. Time to panic? Maybe. But first, here's some free advice from The Corner Office's 5-Minute Consultant. That would be me.
In case you're wondering, 24/7 Wall St - the list's creators - used an impressive list of employee impressions, customer satisfaction, shareholder returns, and brand valuation metrics to compile this list.
- 1. AIG. A $180 billion government bailout, 99 percent of its market value wiped out, huge layoffs, and the whole executive bonus fiasco add up to a brand that is now essentially worthless.
Advice: This only makes sense in rare cases, but this is definitely one of them. Change the name. It worked for Philip Morris's rebranding to Altria in 2003. People have very short memories. - 2. United Airlines. Experienced "air warriors" won't to be surprised to find United's name on the list. The chronically ailing airline tied for dead last with US Air in a 2009 JD Power survey, among other things.
Advice: I have over 2 million miles on American Airlines. Can I pick 'em or what? Seriously, it's a two horse race. Figure out why the other horse (AA) always wins. Not as easy as it sounds? Well, that's why you make the big bucks. - 3. Level 3. This aggregate of a whole bunch of broadband network companies has faced continuous integration and customer service problems due to poorly executed acquisitions.
Advice: Can you say "WorldCom redux," but without the fraud? Settle down and stop buying companies until you learn how to efficiently integrate what you've got and make a profit. - 4. Hertz. Made Glassdoor's list of "worst companies to work for." It also made another distinguished list - the Audit Integrity's list of American companies most likely to go bankrupt.
Advice: Maybe Hertz should be the one "trying harder" instead of Avis. - 5. Citigroup. Yes, former CEO Sandy Weill accomplished his dream of building a banking conglomerate. Now CEO Vikram Pandit gets to figure out how to unravel it. Good luck.
Advice: Through conservative management, Wells Fargo was able to avoid much of the whole banking collapse thing. When will they learn that leverage is bad. - 6. K-Mart. Look, nobody likes staunch old-timer K-Mart. Customer and employee satisfaction is in the dumps at both K-Mart and acquirer, Sears. Perfect match.
Advice: Target somehow managed to come up with some hip ads and streamline its supply chain. How hard can it be? - 8. Dell. Once IT's 800 pound gorilla that could do no wrong, Dell seems to have fallen out of favor with just about everybody these days.
Advice: Get Michael Dell out of there and bring in a turnaround expert before its brand is completely trashed. - 11. Dish Network. I tried to dump DirecTV twice, and each time, Dish never even made it to my house, so I gave up. Looks like I'm not alone. Dish is plagued by customer service issues.
Advice. Tie the entire management team's compensation to customer service metrics. That'll fix it in a hurry. - 15. Sprint. Number three in a two company market is a bad place to be. It doesn't help that Sprint trails AT&T and Verizon in just about every wireless customer service metric.
Advice: People like CEO Dan Hesse, but not me. The post-Nextel merger turnaround is getting long in the tooth and, well, results speak for themselves, don't they?