Pretty much all customer-facing enterprises monitor social media. including niche social media such as FT. But, that doesn't mean that there is a team pouring through thousands of posts full of drivel. Decent CRM social media software an easily pull out key search terms, not only from FT but from other sites and present a useful picture.

Monitoring doesn't mean every post every day. The same as polling and focus groups.

As o OP's specific, a complaint about a specific issue which is resolveable (even if not to the customer's satisfaction) is a horse of a different color from broad-based comments about hard & soft product. Those simply get noted as a metric and acted on or not. Best to focus a complaint on the one thing which can be dealt with. By inference, if the same customer complains about the same thing regularly, it means that the customer is a complainer but DL is not at risk of losing that customer's business.

We They do not actively monitor FT. :D

It's really quite sad (but not surprising) that a non-union company cares more about its employees than their union peers at OA.

This captures it best. There isn't a DL call center where DL employees comb thru every FT post looking to "take action," but many Delta employees including members of the skymiles team regularly review flyertalk.

I can't speak to DL from personal knowledge, but UA absolutely monitors FT, among other things to learn of IT bugs and the new ways we've figured out to maximize FFP value (aka, "game their systems"). I would assume DL does same.

Exactly which is why I don't make any comments on Skymiles loopholes because I know with certainty that DL staff actively read this forum; not going to make it easy for them to further devalue Skymiles.

Back in the warmer days of FT-DL relations (2008 or so), DL employees were actively engaged with the FT community, both on the board and at the DOs.

Analytics is useful for certain things (eg: "safety conscious consumers are a better source of revenue than premium cabin passengers") but a specialty board like FT is great for getting specific (some may say esoteric) feedback from a sector of the customer base who actually know more about the product than most employees. Frankly DL would be stupid not to monitor the board. (A lack of bidirectional participation is more likely from a desire not to engage with the constant whining of a noisy few, whose conduct can sometimes border on harassment.)

In contrast, something like Twitter is useful for managing PR, but not so useful for the same sort of technical feedback.

Completely agree! I think a large portion of FT'ers definitely fit the model of being a customer base who (in many times) actually do know more about the product than some employees.

I've learned so many things over my 5 years on FT and they have come in handy many times. I think it would truly benefit DL to monitor this board and observe the discussions. On many social media platforms (Twitter/FB) the content is mostly from non-status members complaining about policies they encountered on their once-a-year flight. FT consists of more frequent fliers (many who have status and are likely to be in Premium Cabins).

I can completely understand DL choosing not to "engage" in discussions on FT. But I think it would be a huge mistake for them to ignore the community entirely.

I know for a fact that DL monitors ALL social websites. I have first hand knowledge of employees who have been disciplined for posts that DL considered to be inappropriate.

And let's be realistic, this is consistent with pretty much every company. Marriott in particular has fired a lot of employees even for minor social media offenses.

I'm not being critical of DL. They have rules and guidelines and expect them to be adhered to. There's nothing wrong with that. I have clients that do the same thing.

I know many employees who read FT since they get information here that they don't get from DL but they don't have accounts and would never post anything.

I have a rule for myself that I never post anything I learn from an employee if it isn't publicly available information.

Good rule :)

It's also good to avoid posting anything specific about an employee going above and beyond as that could get the kind agent in trouble.

Agreed, if I’m going to mention this kind of situation I’m always vague/unspecific about the date, flight number, etc.

I think it depends... if what they did was clearly "in bounds" then I might be specific. If I get the sense they might've bent or broken a rule in my favor (and can't give a JWD for some reason) I might write in a compliment and just say something bland and generic like "provided great/attentive service" etc.

Right, if clearly in bounds that’s another story. But if gray area/above and beyond, I’ll be unspecified.

I will however write in to compliment and just say “X provided outstanding service” or something to that end without actually saying exactly what they did.