Gaz

Social media is a very fast moving world, and the companies that benefit from it are the early adopters, who make largely instinctive decisions to use these platforms in certain ways. Whereas companies that insists on scores of pages of evidence and absolute proof that these platforms are worthwhile to their business will probably miss the boat, because by the time they finally decide to engage, the platform is no-longer relevent.

leavingonajetplane

It's amazing how many are misunderstanding the point of a SM presence- brand engagement. It's not necessarily a way of selling tickets; rather, a way of creating greater awareness of a brand and a way of seeking and sharing info.

It is the future and you may as well go with it.

henkybaby

I believe this applies to much more than just social media by the way. Old style management does not work anymore*. If you make your decisions based on inch thick reports, multiple powerpoint presentations and weeks of meetings you are probably doing politics and not being an entrepreneur. Things have changed across the board.

* of course that does not apply to all jobs!

HIDDY

I deserved that retort. ^

Or those who wait and learn by others mistakes before committing too many resources to it.

Chokkoubin

I think that there's a very important practical side to airlines' use of social media, as well as a marketing one. I don't know if anybody on this forum will have encountered the 'Delta Assist' presence on twitter, but from my experience it forms an ideal example of why social media is so important, not only for the purposes of brand awareness, but also in terms of customer experience.

Earlier this year I flew to Osaka on KLM, and wanted to be able to manage the booking in my Skymiles account. Delta's infamous website wouldn't accept the KLM PNR, so in order to get one that worked I tweeted Delta Assist (in an entirely secure direct message) asking for some help. 10 minutes later I received a very kind message containing the details I needed and wishing me a pleasant flight.

The point is that not only was this an incredibly convenient way for me to solve a problem, sending a tweet instead of spending time and money on hold to a call centre, it also came across as a very efficient and professional service. You can't really put a value on the customer 'feel good' factor that generates, but I think it must definitely count for something.

Now maybe I thought this was a great way of doing things because I'm 20 and would go to great lengths to avoid having to phone somebody to solve a problem, as would almost everyone my age that I know. But while that's a vast generalisation, what's important to remember is that in the not-too-distant future it's my facebooking, tweeting generation that will be looking to fly around the world, for work and pleasure, and I don't think a company like BA can afford not to pay attention, not only to what its competitors are doing, but also to what (at least some of) its customers want.

shorthauldad

That means that Delta Assist must have devoted a certain amount of resource to staffing this service. Question - can you expect to email Delta Assist and get a response in 10 minutes? If not, why not? There is no technical reason why sending a direct message through Twitter should get you a faster response than emailing (at least within the margin of a minute or two).

My theory? At the moment you're able to get a prompt reply to your message only because the ratio of resource (i.e. staff) to enquiries on the social side of things is much higher than on the "old fashioned" call centre or email side. This is probably because the overall number of customers making contact by Twitter is still very low. There is nothing inherently better about answering a customer's individual question through a Twitter secure message than answering a customer's individual question which came by email. The Twitter users just get a better service.

Essentially this "feels" unfair to me, because I don't want to have to use Twitter in order to get a timely response. I want to be able to get a timely response by whatever method of contacting my airline I choose. (Shorthauldad the dreamer, eh?)

It's a bit like FastTrack security lines. Great system when only 1% of passengers use it. Probably OK when 10% of passengers use it. But imagine what would happen if 90% of passengers were issued with FastTrack tickets. It quickly becomes SlowTrack and the "normal" lane is just as good a choice.

So imagine what would happen if 50%+ of the customers trying to contact an airline on a given day were doing so by sending a secure message through Twitter. Hmmm... 10 minute response time? I very much doubt it.

So, will the "advantages" of social media actually hold up once the load volumes increase dramatically?? Will the airlines continue to invest and expand the service to keep the response times fast??

If they don't then all the fans of social media might start to get a bit frustrated - and have to join the rest of us in the phone queue to reach BAEC when they need urgent assistance...

Personally, before BA start investing in setting up a social media team, I think they have more important problems to fix. Problems that affect a much big proportion of their pax.

Chokkoubin

The key difference here is still my customer experience - even if wait times were to increase to 20, 30, 40 minutes, even an hour, that would be time that I would be spending doing what I need to do, rather than paying however many pounds it would cost to hang around, wasting time on hold.

As for there being other problems for BA to fix, ahead of setting up social media - that's true, there's always something to improve on, nothing is perfect. But I don't think that opening new channels of customer service/essentially free brand recognition will prevent BA from tackling whatever it is that isn't up to scratch, whether it be dirty planes, dated onboard products or bad food. If anything, opening up new channels of communication might even get these things sorted out faster - 150 tweets saying 'the plane on this specific flight on this specific day was filthy' could help direct attention to a problem. It's that kind of direct customer feedback that companies should try to take advantage of; it improves their service, and nets them brownie points in the process.

Gaz

You mean BA's strategy? What a surprise that you think BA are right.

shorthauldad

...but there's a global infrastructure already in place for people to exchange (semi-)secure messages, it's called email.

Why should BA introduce yet more ways to contact them if they (apparently) can't even get the system right to promptly, accurately and fairly deal with emails from customers? So "social media" users can skip the phone queues or avoid emailing BA and waiting a week for a canned response?!

Chokkoubin

Essentially, yes.

A tweet is infinitely more efficient than an email. For starters, you can't fit a canned response into one, and if you do brush a customer off then it's right there for everyone to see, and to criticise.

Having dealt with BA and DL via email and twitter, respectively, I can say that yes, I got the help I wanted on both occasions, quickly and courteously. What makes twitter better, in my case, and in the case of the millions of people that use it, was the lack of fuss. To email BA I had to find the correct email address to write to, open up another page on my browser in order to access my email, before penning a polite but insistent message, mindful of all traditional social norms and conventions. To tweet DL I went to twitter (which I would often be browsing anyway), typed 'Delta' into the search bar, and asked my question in the simplest possible terms (limited as I was to 140 characters).

They're both quick, but twitter is quicker. Along with Facebook, it opens up a whole new kind of customer service, which is fast, convenient (if you happen to be one of the half a billion people using those social networks) and free, all of which are things that make it a very attractive service to those that want to, and choose to use it.

henkybaby

Thanks for explaining it, Chokkoubin. Good examples. People who compare twitter or facebook or whatever will be next to email should also compare email to regular mail and regular mail to carrier pigeons.

The point to social media is that:

a) there is a more direct way of communicating
b) the objective is resolution, not communication after the fact...
c) resolutions that apply to more than one pax can immediately be shared with all pax
d) the previous point reduces the number of individual messages that will be send to the CSD
e) there is also the possibility of crowd sourcing the answers

colmc

Bear in mind that non-urgent queries can be pointed in the right direction (i.e. told to call/email, or a case opened for the customer by the agent in the company's customer care system) while urgent ones can be resolved. They can also arange for customers to be called back if theyre stuck in country X where phone call costs might be horrendous etc.

Think if BA had a Delta like system for folks who encounter problems while away from home (just think of the issues we've had posted here recently..non-ticketed bookings discovered at airport for example). That's the beauty of such a system. It doesn't nessecary mean queues are jumped..non-urgent issues can be re-directed or logged for later action if needed..but the "right now" issues can be dealt with when they need to be dealt with.

shorthauldad

...err, sorry, no, I think you guys should join the queue with the rest of us!

Hang on, on one hand you're wanting to send secure messages via Twitter to the airline (which I'm saying helps you jump the email/telephone queue), but on the other you're saying the answers will be public and will help everyone?

Which is it?

shorthauldad

a) A telephone call is actually the most direct way of communicating other than being in the same room and speaking in person. 140 characters is a to my mind a pretty limited way of communicating!

b) Most people who call BAEC are calling to resolve something that needs resolving; how is this "after the fact"? We're not talking about the "Dear Keith, my CW seat was bust, give me 20,000 Avios" letters

c) and d) How many calls to BAEC could be shared with the general public? 5% 0.5% ?

e) Are we talking about secure messages about e.g. an individual's booking? or "I can't find my way to the airport" tweets?

HIDDY

No I don't think that at all.

I just feel the importance of communicating to customers through Twitter and Facebook is being exaggerated especially by henkybaby who seems to be judging how successful it is by the number of Likes they are getting.

Of course I'm old enough to remember when telegrams were used for urgent communication so it probably isn't surprising I find it all a bit strange.