Continental Needs to Get on Twitter
 

I've been following United and Jet Blue on Twitter and think it's about time that Continental gets its act together and joins too! Am I the only one?

Twitter is :rolleyes:. I'm of the opinion that CO should focus on the multitude of huge changes coming in the next six months versus joining the latest social marketing trend which is popular for reasons passing my own personal understanding.

Errr...

So you don't understand it, therefore they shouldn't do it?

Continental should absolutely join Twitter and be able to provide its loyal followers updates and announcements.

But we have Alex. :p

To provide what information? Fare sales? Half the ones United provides don't earn miles and the jetBlue ones are only one-way. I'll pass.

If there is a compelling value-add I'm sure they'd get on it. But there isn't much of a business case to be found for it that I can see right now.

I don't quite understand why Twitter is so wildly popular, but a lot of companies are seeing value in social marketing as an important tool to engage with customers on a less formal basis.

I think Continental setting up shop on Twitter would be a natural evolution of their social marketing strategies, a follow-on to their move to bring Scott to Flyertalk. Twitter would have a similar effect, only likely reaching a much larger, more mainstream, and probably more "average Joe Consumer" audience.

Some of the work I do now involves researching and advising on social marketing trends, and one of the cardinal rules I offer to customers is to avoid looking at Twitter as a sales tool. People aren't visiting the site in order to get sold on some product or service, they are on to engage and interact with people/entities within their 'social network'.

If anything, I would advise Continental to focus any Twitter-based effort strictly on informal, friendly, personable, 'real' customer interaction. It works well to conduct nonscientific market research, to get a pulse on customer sentiment, and see what your customers value. Unfortunately, I could also see it becoming a new complaint department, so any move in this direction would definitely have to be handled with care.

Where CO can make Twitter value add is creating an account that is not used for announcements but one that is used to explore complaints and issues.

A lot of people complain on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#search?q=Continental%20airlines and it may be worth it to explore some of the complaints further and try to rectify the situations. Positive press and/or noise can't hurt.

If people are seeing "Continental Sucks!" and then "Wow, CO solved my issues", people may be less reluctant to fly them in the future.

Put an intern in there to monitor it and make a report of how many complaints are posted on Twitter every day/week/month and come up with a way to try and reduce that.

How about general company news? Updates to rules? Announcements addressing issues like turbulence-gate on Monday?

Companies are always looking for communication platforms to reach new and expand audiences, as well as provide updates to current customers.

I work professionally in the world of communication, so I absolutely can see the value.

Agreed. I think they could even post weather delays at their hubs. They send text messages, why not a simple Twitter message?

the only half useful thing I could see for twitter would be for posting delays with a bot. anything else is worthless.
You can't resolve client issues in a microblog format, you can contact them from there already, you don't need to add to the net fluff by microblogging more unless it is useful.

I wasn't suggesting they solve the issues using a Microblog format, I was suggesting that they at least explore issues. CO's issue handling through the website and phone number are easy to be confused by, they could scour Twitter, find people with issues and Direct Message them an e-mail.

I'd be really impressed to get a message from someone like Scott (not saying it needs to be him) asking me to send him an e-mail with details of my issue. Not sure how that can be viewed as a poor idea.

Targeted versus useless? If I'm on a flight I want to know about delays. If I'm following CO on twitter I don't care that EWR is, once again, delayed due to ATC on a day I'm not flying.

I agree that using it as a CSR tool has potential upside, but I'd much rather they fix the existing WeCare2 curd than just add another avenue for which CO reps can write "wx issues; not r fault"

I wasn't saying seeking out and resolving issues was a bad idea, that is always good. I was saying adding fluff posts in twitter is a waste of everyone time, and that is what I find is in most twitter accounts. Posting for the sake of posting is :rolleyes:

Imagine Scott doing like some people do on twitter:
On flyertalk posting
-
going to the elevator to attend a meeting
-
preparing a letter to a client
-

stuff like this gets old :)

I completely agree. VX, AS and WN seem to do this and their reputations on Twitter are quite good because of it.

For a few months, I've thought about starting a similar thread about CO and their lack of involvement in social media. While I am not a user of most of the popular social media sites (and I'm not convinced social media will survive in its current format), I think CO really does need to create and maintain a presence on these sites. When a company has free access to millions of current and potential customers, it is almost silly for them not to be an active participant in these sites.

That does get old, but I don't know of a single business Twitter account that does that. All of them are either posting news or links to changes.

jetBlue has used the microblog angle to solve someone's problem at least once -- does anyone remember who tweeted or twitted or whatever the hell it's called that she could not get a wheelchair for her grandmother or something? The B6 Twitpersonthing noticed it and had a wheelchair to her in a few minutes. Not saying it can't be done. (It's blantantly obvious that I am not on Twitter...I don't have the discipline nor do I wish to tell teh planet what I'm doing.)

Personal tweets would be a waste, but there is potential for organization-based concepts to be shared that way. I just wonder what the business case is, other than "everyone else is doing it so it must be cool" or how CO would plan to actually do better with it than with their moderately disfunctional WeCare and TripAlert systems.

They could start by assigning the task to a few employees who genuinely care about customer service rather than assigning the responsibilities to a mass of disgruntled employees and a broken IT system. :)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/jetbl...hlight=twitter

It isn't all good news:http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/jetbl...hlight=twitter
And some of it is just plane strange(to me):http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/jetbl...attle-out.html

And there are a few CO employees who are passionate about new technology and things like Twitter who I'm sure would be glad to do the work.

You think the problem is that the reps don't care, rather than something higher up the chain? :eek:

The business case could be found in fixing problems faster. If someone Twits that they are having a problem with something at the airport, the people monitoring it can then be alerted of it faster and possibly fix problems in near-real time. It would be a loyalty builder because you might end up making converts out of non-CO diehards.

I'm sure it's a mix, but that's another thread... :)

Yeah, that. ^

Any new technology carries with it the risk of it blowing up in someone's face.

But only if problems actually get fixed. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg discussion, but I think that CO has to commit to actually taking better care of their customers, particularly in IRROPS situations, before the platform they choose to use matters at all.

Deep down, I think this may be the reason that CO has not created an official Twitter account (or anything like it). I have a feeling that they know quite well that their support structure is lacking and don't want to make it blatantly obvious by having a tool for people to report problems to and not replying to them.

Close the thread; we have a winner. @:-)

Their support structure is lacking, so in turn we are blessed with Alex.

The airlines currently on Twitter have already stated they do not intend to use it as a means to handle complaints. They want their customers to use the systems they have in place. However, they have been able to immediately help some people because they were monitoring Twitter.

Travel is one of the best reasons to tweet. There are a lot of people who don't care about miles, a lot who just want a cheap flight and still many who like last minute deals. I think it is safe to assume Twitter accounts really aren't geared towards middle aged business men. It is just another vehicle to find new customers who don't purchase their flights like y'all do.

No tweeting planned:

You Asked: Do you know about Twitter?
Alex: I have not been trained on this subject yet. Use the feedback link and tell me more about the type of information you are looking for.

You Asked: Should Continental start tweeting?
Alex: I'm not positive that I understand what you are asking. If you would like to reach us, please use the Contact Us link below.

You Asked: I tawt I taw a puddy tat?
Alex: I don't have any tattoos.

I'm prtty sure I'm not a middle-aged businessman. :p

Actually, most of FlyerTalk isn't from what I've seen. But that's a whole different can of worms.

I think it is great if CO wants to use Twitter to find new customers or to provide support that's fine, but I'd love to see some evidence that such can be done in a cost-effective manner and in a way that operates consistently with the rest of their overall strategy. And I'm trying to see how CO could actually accomplish that.

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??