Case Details: Read the case details below and write an email to address the situation.

You are Jenna Smythe, Senior Regional Sales Director for HealthyCo, a rapidly growing North American health and lifestyle wholesaler and direct sales company that specializes in natural care products. Your office is based in Portland, Oregon.

This morning youre about to board a flight to Helsinki, Finland, where youre initiating possible merger discussions with PillCo, another healthcare company. The possibility of a merger is highly confidential and currently, within your company, only the executive team is aware of the reason for your trip. The executives do not want staff to know about these merger discussions, or even the fact that the company is looking to merge or acquire other firms, as this information cannot be shared until the negotiations are complete. Your local time is 6:30 am (PST).

You look at your phone and realize that you just missed a call from one of your sales associates, James Sims. He works in the same office as you do.

The Voicemail:

Hi Jenna. James here. Sorry to bother you, but we have a crisis forming. My daughter, Alyssa, was on Facebook and came across our companys page, and noticed that during the night, weve been flooded with over 250 negative reviews about our companys natural care products. These users have posted how our products are harmful to the environment and how we do not actually use natural ingredients. You know as well as I do that these allegations are completely false.

My daughter mentioned that certain social media groups will often go on the offensive and attack different companies that sell natural products, such as beauty products, healthy foods, and so on. She said that they dont always stick to the facts and will often target one company and bombard their social media sites with negative information. It looks like one or more groups have been planning to target our company, and have chosen late last night to do so, since they assume that no one is monitoring our pages at night.

I took a look, stating that our moisturizers and hair products use a number of banned chemicals and that we are lying when we state that we just use natural ingredients. I want to find these users and sue themthats how angry I am!

Were going to need to deal with this issue fast. Unfortunately, I cant just fix everything. The problem, as you know, is that our previous social media manager, Anne Wilson, recently left. I havent met our new social media manager yet, but I remember you mentioning that you met him recently. Can you reach out and have him fix this before things get blown out of proportion and our clients start flooding us with concerns? Thanks.

The new social media manager is Pete Bishop, who just joined the company a few days ago and is getting up to speed and becoming more familiar with the companys products. You don't know which office he is based out of yet, but you can reach him via email or phone. Youll need him to drop everything and figure out a solution fast. Because of an upcoming reorganization, he doesnt have a direct manager at the moment, but eventually, hell be reporting to you. This information is confidential and not to be shared given that the reorganization has not taken place yet.

Normally, youd give Pete a call, but given that youre about to board a long flight, where you wont have any voice or data access, you need to send him an urgent email prior to boarding, explaining what the issues are and what you need him to do (even though he doesnt currently report to you yet and doesnt know that hell eventually be your employee).

To further complicate issues, your company doesnt have set social media guidelines in place for people who post on your companys social media pages. This is something that Anne was planning to do, but didnt get to this task before she left.

Given that you dont know Pete well (yet), you arent sure how hell address these damaging reviews. If you were in his position, youd post a corporate response, thanking people for feedback, yet also clarifying facts and reconfirming that your company uses only natural products. Youd also include a phone number in case people have legitimate questions, as youd want to encourage them to call your company. After all, some social media users who jump on the bandwagon may be acting on incorrect information, and not all posters are necessarily malicious in their actions or intent.

In addition, given the number of posts, you wouldnt respond to each post individually, as this will just drag out the issue and possibly enrage some posters more, or result in them going back and forth with your company, or possibly make the company look even worse. Youd ignore any ongoing wall posts and not engage with the complainants directly, and then look to post other product updates a few days later. You wouldnt do this immediately, as you dont want to look like youre trying to cover up all of the other posts. After a few days, if the posts dont subside, you can post another broad corporate response. Lastly, if need be, though it isnt ideal, youd block certain users. Youd also get started on a Facebook guidelines document that you can eventually include on your companys Facebook page (though this is of a lower priority).

Write an email to Pete, providing him with the needed context and recommendations. You want him to address this issue quickly, given that PillCo will research your company prior to the meeting and will not be impressed to see so many negative posts. Also, you know that your current customers all around the world may be concerned as well. Ask Pete to take action and to provide you with an email status update by 6:00 pm (PST), as youll be able to check your emails once you land in Helsinki.