How is Twitter the solution to this? What's wrong with phone or email? I'm not sure I really understand.
And perhaps even more importantly, how penetrated is Twitter among CO's most profitable customers?

Disclaimer: I am not a tweeterer.

Twitter is not the solution to this. It was established earlier that Twitter would be the proverbial cart before the horse for CO because they (probably) do not have the support systems to fix problems quickly and the use of Twitter could potentially blow up in their face and expose their problems. Once their back end house in order, Twitter might be a logical next step to take...after they negotiate a severance package with Alex.

I can't speak to penetration rates, but why do "the most profitable customers" matter? Someone who files 200k BIS a year is more likely to have a bad experience and chalk it up to flying a lot. The target, IMO, should not be these people. It should be aimed at the commoners who do not know how to work the system.

http://twitter.com/CO_Air

http://twitter.com/OnePassProgram

Twitter is great, I tweet frequently as @kramilch and know that some FTers/CO staff follow me.

I think that for a major brand like CO twitter is best used as a one way communication vehicle. Most customer complaints I see on twitter are about people not understanding business processes and therefore asking for things that front line staff do not have authorization to do.

All this said, I feel that having someone like CO Insider on FT make good sense: we tend to better understand the system than people who fly a couple times per year. Because we are expert customers who know what feedback can actually improve processes and what is just wistful thinking. (That said as a MBA student who will graduate next year without status, I'd be delighted if CO matched AA's free status for MBA grads program.)

Okay, I know I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but I can't imagine how any company would want to deal with anybody's tweets. I followed the link to tweets referencing CO that was posted earlier in the thread. Here's one pile of tweets I found:

I've known departire time & gate for CO1132 since 3pm. Flight attendants just arrived nonchalantly. Have they no respect?! Continental FAIL

What good is it being platinum super duper awesome elite level with an airlne that has no basic respect for civility?? Continental air FAIL!

Corollary: continental air is an airline of last century. They aren't even on twitter. Worst airline ever trophy goes to CONTINENTAL AIR!!!

Continental airlines fail continues. Why the HELL is my flight delayed?! Beautiful skies, not rush hour. ...!!! this is SO old!

And you know what? According to the PDA site, this tweeter got to her destination a whole hour late. My goodness-- a whole hour! :rolleyes: It's a good thing she was able to let the whole world know about it!

this is the numero uno reason companies should be on twitter. there are many companies who pay people to monitor social networking sites for complaints because these things get viral real quick

Twitter is a fad. It'll go away as quickly as it came.

Then it's a fad that is taking a while to die. I've been using it for over a year and it's been around longer than that.

Everyone thought Facebook was a fad for it's first 3 years of life and now companies are really capitalizing on it.

There are many reasons they should have a Twitter account:

1 - Every one of us would follow them if they did, to get the latest updates
2 - Continental knows #1 is true, and therefore gives them instant and immediate access to their loyal followers, outside of OnePass emails
3 - The ability to track complaints, both legitimate business concerns they need to address immediately, as well as simple complaints that have nothing to do with their operation and can be ignored
4 - Rival airlines have Twitter accounts and use them successfully to reach their customers
5 - Make announcements, offers, promotions, and responses - which have an instant viral PR component to them as bloggers, FTers, etc. all repeat the announcement (retweet) we feel worthwhile

It's really not even a question from a business perspective. Even if they used it JUST to hit out promotions and special deals, it gives them the ability to communicate to a much larger audience - and at the end of the day, that can mean an increase in ticket sales for little investment.

Do you really have to ask this??

perhaps...I don't quite thing FB is a fad though, although in truth neither has made a dime yet, nor have either of them shown a near term plan to become profitable.

Oh is that so? I guess I didn't read the tweet from mindcontrol HQ ordering this :)

Seriously, not everyone is on Twitter. Even of those who are, not all of us are enslaved to it to the point of needing to follow businesses.

The second I read this thread title I thought how much fun it would be for us FTers to read Smisek's thoughts the second they came. Do it Jeff! ^

As I pointed out in this post CO already has two twitter accounts. Thus far there has not been a single tweet from either. My guess is that they wanted to reserve the names for when they do decide to use it.

Once CO starts using Twitter they will only receive Tweets from those they choose to "follow" and those who reply directly to a Tweet they send out. I'm sure the number of petty gripes will be minimal.

This could evolve into a valuable marketing and PR tool. United sends out "Twares" which are limited availability city-specific fares. They also recently used Twitter to alert followers about the IT meltdown that occurred @ORD.

Maybe they should deal with issues at 1-800-we(don't)-care2 before they delve into other ways of 'resolving' issues customers might have.