eightblack

And that would be ok if I actually used Facebook. Which I don't. Can't stand the thing. EK recently launched its Facebook page and some within the company were all teary eyed because a record amount of people signed up or liked their page (or whatever the hell it is people do).

But you can bet Tim Clark and The Sheik weren't dancing around in their underwear chanting, hugging and high-fiving each other because of their recent foray into Social Media.

henkybaby

And that's OK too. It is just an additional channel that BA is currently not using properly. Some people prefer the phone, some prefer email, some even still write letters... That will all still be possible if BA decides to add the social channel to their customer service.

1010101

100% agree. BA's page could be brilliant for all i know - which isnt much as it defaults to an unintelligble Chinese language version for me, but regardless Im not sending an urgent query to a faceless email inbox or twitter account. I want to speak to someone who cannot fob me off or escape giving me an answer.

Most companies end up using twitter/facebook as a cheap form of marketing anyway under the disguise of customer interaction, and as such get largely ignored by their target market despite how many 'followers' they may have. Just look at the Facebook IPO for proof. Not many (any??) of these types of companies last long once they attempt to properly monetise their offerings.

henkybaby

On what research / expertise do you base this claim? Or is it just your personal opinion? The FB IPO provides no 'proof' for anything you claim.

shorthauldad

"properly"??! ...are there rules for doing this sort of thing, then?

henkybaby

Yes. Best practises mostly. Like the way KLM uses it. That was sort of the point of the thread. KLM has demonstrated it can be successful as a customer service channel (that is not really 'im frage' anymore) and I was wondering if BA should try and do the same.

shorthauldad

You appear to be proposing that BA should invest in setting themselves up to interact with customers via social media. Wouldn't it normally be up to you (as the proposer) to provide some research/expertise/proof that this would be either a good idea and/or a sound business investment?

Or is it just your personal opinion?

henkybaby

No, it is part of my job to explore the way companies can use social for learning & knowledge management (current assignment) and (in my previous assignments) for customer service. A Google search (on KLM in this case) can provide you with many examples where it has succeeded or failed and why. I provided a link in my OP to some information about KLM. You can find more if you're interested.

Panda4

I'm loving the irony of someone with over 22,700 posts on here referring to users of other social media as "geeks".

1010101

I think we should differentitate social media from its component part, social networking.

The Facebook IPO bombed because despite the hundreds of millions of members, all seeing a constant stream of targeted adverts, hardly anyone is clicking on them. Worse still, noone has any idea how to get them to start. Facebook proved that right now, most people just ignore the adverts on social networks.

shorthauldad

Any chance of an evidence-based approach (we're talking about businesses here not teenagers!) ?

At the moment we're just about at the level of "my neighbour painted his house red ... people looked at it ... therefore red houses are good ... therefore I should paint my house red too". There must be more to it than this, I'm genuinely curious to know the detail - actual facts and figures - like how much it costs to set up a team to "do" social media, total staffing costs, cost per interaction, whether any revenue is attributable to having set up a social media team, whether it's been discussed that customers might not like that emails get a reply in days - at best - but that Tweets get answered much faster, etc, etc, etc

I think it's a bit weak (sorry) to throw around phrases like "best practice" and "it's no longer up for debate". In a lot of companies these things are very definitely still up for debate! BA, for one. Come on, convince us sceptics

What definition of "successful" are you using here?!

I have two counter proposals, one semi serious, one totally silly, both as thought experiments:

1) BA open a big, UK-based call centre and staff it 24/7. I would bet money it would be received positively. It would cost a lot of money, sure, but customers would love it. It would be successful (at least by your working definition!). What's not to like? Oh, I haven't got a proper business case for it, of course, but it's not my money and that doesn't really matter, does it?!

2) If I gave out BA-branded envelopes - each containing £100 - in central London for a week, I could be even more successul! It would "build the brand", it would "generate buzz", it might "go viral" (and all those other lovely marketing terms). It might cost a boatload of cash and bring precious little in real return, but it would be good fun, and hey, it's not my money anyway!

henkybaby

shorthauldad: I appreciate you comments. Unfortunately I cannot provide you with confidential data of my clients. You either can believe me when I say that customer satisfaction grew whilst cost actually went down or not. That, by the way, is also my customers' definition of successful. Cheaper, better, faster.

Once again: the social channel is nothing more than that, a channel. How would you feel if BA stopped responding to letters, which is effectively also shutting down a channel?

I am afraid I am not explaining it well or we are just in a p!ssing contest about the (lack of) usefulness of social media. Social is much broader than Twitter or Facebook by the way. It includes LinkedIn, Amazon, YouTube, etc. It even includes FlyerTalk. Did you know that YouTube is now a very important source of news for people? Even more than printed media or TV! (source)

The outright dismissal of the social channel here is funny because we are at this very moment using it. I think it is more a hatred for FB and Twitter than a serious argument against social in itself. What do you think?

EDIT:

at240

henkybaby

Good post, interesting article, and well done for keeping your cool amidst the barrage of baffling (and sometimes frankly silly) responses.

1010101

I dont think ive said anywhere that social networking isnt useful when done properly?? What i said is that for whatever reason, the vast majority of companies resort to using it as a cheap marketing tool, which has been proven not to work.

KLM obviously use it as a customer service tool to good effect, as a complement to their existing services. It's not a replacement for other services such as a decent call centre, which is what a lot of the point of this thread has been; should BA focus their customer service on new social media avenues, or improving the traditional ones.

henkybaby

Ok, than I misunderstood. You are right. Like with so many things it can even be harmful if you do not use it properly. Simply starting a Facebook page without any strategy or people behind it is a surefire way to get into trouble.

That was indeed my point. My (and KLM's) claim is that by using social the actual workload in the call centres will go down freeing up resources to address the more urgent matters or reducing cost. Whatever is more important to the shareholders.

I dared to suggest that social would be a way for BA to improve their customer service, not by replacing traditional channels but by adding a channel which could lead to a more to the point utilisation of the 'traditional' ones.