destere

Social media for business is often misunderstood. It is rarely about the hard sell, but rather a way of humanising a business. It's a quick and effective way to create a dialogue with customers.

It's not just about customer service and dealing with complaints, but also striking up general polite conversation - simple things like wishing people a good trip, advising on where to go and what to see etc. Some might be too cynical for that and obviously it isn't for everyone, however an awful lot of people do notice it - 'geeks' or otherwise.

henkybaby

The whole reason for starting this thread is to illustrate that apparently KLM has succeeded in transforming Twitter and Facebook in a successful channel to communicate with passengers during service disruptions etc. Not the 20 or so geeks that were flying on such days but thousands and thousands of them.

And again saying that people who use social media for more than interacting with friends are not normal is not really necessary now, is it?

mad_rich

Have you seen the sort of crap KLM come up with on Facebook?

I 'liked' them some time ago (for a competition, if I remember correctly, and intending to unlike them swiftly thereafter). Their updates are never-ending stream of vacuous, desperately needy, tripe. 'Guess where this is', 'Click like if you need a holiday', 'Look, another picture of a blue plane'.

I wonder how many of KL's 1.7m likes are worth the money being spent on them. Most seem to be either fanboys hoping for a bit of special treatment or angry customers who have got nowhere with CS.

Thanks for the reminder. I have just unliked!

FlyerTalker688786

That is why I never fly KLM. Thank you.

As a serious traveller, I consider social media giant fakebooc and tweeder belongs to group of party goer and brain donor as well as some seemly intelligent people who lost their ways overwhelmly. It is just a personal impression, please do not take it offended in any way. I am sure there are many followers for KLM, but how many actually flying them more than three times a year, and how many time they would travel on full fare economy or business class on KLM during their life time is very questionable. And for KLM, they are hooked up to the social media without a way of backing up as people would demand them to be 24 hours available and they are not allowed any negative views even it is not their own faults (in case of weather forced delays and lost or delayed luggage events).

henkybaby

Good example. Next to no effort but a picture of the interior of their new A330 got:

30.053 likes
2.238 comments
and it was shared (i.e. reposted) 3.457 times.

That is a lot of customers actively engaging with your brand with the effort / cost of < GBP 20.00 (making the cost up as I go along I admit). The point is that it seems to work.

I was however talking about the specific service disruptions, like the ash cloud. BA was completely overwhelmed. No information got to the customer at all. Lines had >2 hr waiting times. KLM managed through social media to keep informing their customers. Still think it is silly?

Look at the KLM FB page and find the post by Angela Davies and the reply by KLM. Given that we all explode with gratitude if Nicci answers a question / responds to a problem I would expect you all to really like it. Or is it alright on FT but not on FB?

HIDDY

Fair enough....as long as they have the normal channels of communication running at maximum efficiency then they can do whatever they like via twitter.

Okay maybe these people are normal and not geeks but I still get the impression it's a bit like boys with toys

leavingonajetplane

I totally agree. London Midland, for example, have great CS on twitter.

People hate change, but it definitely can have an impact if executed correctly.

dunk

I'm a technologist rather than a marketing person, but I do recognise how younger people (Gen Y/Millennials) interact with technology and social media in particular. Many 18-30s rarely watch broadcast TV or read print media. Most of their communication is online and they increasingly expect to interact with brands in a similar manner.

The BA FB presence seems equally fatuous to KL's but I have the admit the recent TV+online ad struck me as innovative.

SM is continually developing and it was interesting to read about KL's 'journey' over the past couple of years.

IMHO, BA need to move beyond this to a more reliably interactive SM presence, but not at the expense of traditional channels.

dunk

Coincidentally, just noticed this link referenced in a post in the A10 thread: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...ia-masterclass

I believe we were discussing recently the loss of 'formality' in modern social interactions. Kids today, etc, ...

pattas

Without reading the article, I'm with HB on this one. My travel is split evenly between KL, CX and BA. Most times everything goes smooth, but the odd disruption that occurred in recent times was handled best by KL. with a DM through twitter, within a very reasonable timeframe. Compared to not being able to get through to BA by phone, or standing in a very long line with a bunch of CX elites in HK.
One method of communication doesn't exclude the other 'historical' ones, but fact remains that a lot of pax are using social media one way or another. Just have a glimpse at someone's phone when the plane lands. Besides email, Facebook is usually the first thing people check.
To dismiss it as something that only the young folks who travel in the back use is not really accurate anymore.

shorthauldad

That bolded bit rather confirms my point.

the phrase "engaging with brand" = marketing fluff

I don't call BA to engage with their brand, I call because I need them to sort something out for me!

How many people (re-)book their flights each week via BA's website, and via BA's call centres. No idea.

How many (re-)book their flights using Twitter/Facebook each week? Exact answer = Zero.

Ratio of (re-)bookings via "old-fashioned" website+telephone : Twitter+FB ...

<divide by zero error at line six...>


If you email BA about an issue, how quickly do they respond?

I do hope that direct messages to an airline via Twitter get placed in the same queue as emails to the airline ... 'cause I'm fairly sure they'd take the same amount of resource to answer? You think you'll get a faster answer via Twitter? is it that the Twitter department get far more resource to throw at this per enquiry than the "boring" call centres, as Social Media is the "in thing" this month?

Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick.

When the ash cloud grounded all our flights, did you want feel your airline was "humanised business"? Did your airline want "a dialogue with you as a customer"... or did you actually want to get through to someone and be able to rebook your flights as quickly and painlessly as possible?

There is this amazing thing that BA run - top secret you understand - called their web site. The best bit is that you don't even need to Tweet to use it!

You use something called a Web Browser (which is apparently built in to many devices these days) to visit their Web Page, and you can access up to date Flight Information.

Pity more people haven't heard of it.

It could be a great way to communicate with passengers during service disruption!

Swanhunter

Interesting assumption that it would be cost neutral. Given that SM is primarily a marketing and communication channel (and done properly has some meaningful overhead) there must be a revenue stream to offset that?

Making SM genuinely work as a reliable tool for CS would require even further investment for resilience at time of disruption etc. Spend that could be used elsewhere...say on flatbeds?

The issue with BA is there is insufficient money spent to ensure existing methods of communication/interaction can cope - as per the lack of 24 hour phone support. So, do I think that BA pursuing a similar strategy is relevant. Going back to the corporate customer point - Twitter isn't important to them.

HIDDY

Indeed...get the basics which the majority use and rely on running properly then they can do what they like with the snazzy gadgety stuff.
From a quick read over in Flying Blue they seem to have had trouble updating their redemption tool for years.

Globaliser

Then this is indistinguishable from email, which will reach a far wider constitutency than Twatter.

henkybaby

I'm sorry but you are voicing your 'guestimations', not facts. How can you not see the parallel with Nicci answering queries here and helping out behind the screens and 50 Nicci's doing the same on FB for KLM? Do you want Nicci to leave because her presence here makes no sense?