Energizer Malaysia acts fast to curb social media disaster

The night race held on 16 April at the F1 Sepang International Circuit drew 10,000 enthusiastic racers. Unfortunately, poor organisation resulted in a debacle that sent thousands of participants online seeking redress.

One racer, Yogaretnam, posted on his blog that the racers were initially crammed into a tunnel to the racetrack waiting to collect their headlamps from only one station distributing it. The racer said it rapidly disintegrated into a free-for-all and many racers were forced to go without in the end.

During the race, several racers later posted online that only one water station was available and that the race was poorly coordinated. Late finishers for the longest-race, the 42 km run, found the finishing line unmanned and deserted as the organisers had left.

The real trouble however began when the race had been completed. According to Yogaretnam, racers milled around trying to pick up promised goody bags only to find massive queues and next to no crowd management. At a one point, impatient racers surged forward and started tossing the goody bags out to the waiting crowd themselves. Eventually the police were called in to manage the situation.

Furious, the racers took to Energizer’s Facebook page in droves venting their frustrations. When they realised that negative comments were being deleted, a new Facebook group, Boycott Energizer Night Race, was formed. From there, comments got steadily more negative with several racers determined not only to boycott future race events by Energizer, but to spurn the battery brand altogether.

YouTube videos of the chaos at the event were posted along with entries on blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

No response was heard from Energizer or Expose until Monday when a terse apology was issued absolving Energizer of all responsibility. However, Energizer and the organiser did promise full-refunds and goody bags for all participants. A few days later (April 21), Energizer announced that it would be stepping in to personally manage the refunds and goody bag mail outs.

Nevertheless, the torrent of negative feedback from the event continued with racers demanding refunds and compensation for the botched event.

Finally, three weeks after the race, Energizer Malaysia stepped in with its managing director Mike Foong inviting racers to meet up for a “run and talk” on 7 May. The meetup turned out to be Energizer’s first step in turning the tide of disapproval.

“Overall I would say this was an excellent way for Energizer to show that they are really taking the incident that happened in Sepang seriously. For us runners this also offered a platform to voice our experience and opinions of the event as a whole,” posted Yogaretnam.

Following the meetup, Mike Foong personally kept in touch with the racers via Facebook, posting updates on the company’s progress in sending out refunds and goody bags to the racers.

By 27 May, posts that racers had received their refund cheques and goody bags started appearing on Facebook. 

“Just wanted to drop a line of appreciation to the service recovery efforts to the Energizer Malaysia Team! Got everything that was promised. Thumbs Up!” read one such entry.

Energizer dealt with any problems stemming from the distribution of the bags and cheques smoothly and swiftly and a constant stream of updates and responses to queries on Facebook was kept up.

At last, what started out as a social media crisis had been turned into a relatively positive experience for the runners with one even posting on the Boycott Facebook Wall, “Will be 'unliking' this page in a moment. Energizer has done their part in clearing the mess left by certain individuals. I will not be 'Boycotting' Energizer run next year. Cheers!”

When contacted, Energizer’s Mike Foong declined to comment as he felt the situation was still volatile.