Top 10 Customer Service Initiatives on Social Media by Airlines

Top 10 examples of airlines and airports
using social media for customer
service and engaging customers more
effectively.

Featuring:

Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably

http://www.SimpliFlying.com
http://www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 1
Frontier Airlines: “Damage control”

Fighting Murphy’s law with social media

When a storm hits an
airline’s major hub it is
reasonable to expect some
flight delays. However, what
if that storm happens to
carry golf-ball-sized ice
pellets, and damages one
third of their fleet?

The solution Frontier airlines
found was called social
media.

www.SimpliFlying.com

Two easy steps
The airline knew from the start
that a lot of passengers were
going to arrive at the airport only
to find out that their flights had
been cancelled so, in order to
reduce the negative
sentiments, they started using
social media to disseminate
information.

Step 1: Keeping people
informed
It reduced stress and helped
customers understand what was
going on.


Listen! Empower! Engage!
They also knew that passengers
were, understandably, going to
be angry and complain about it
on the social web. So they used
Radian 6 to track down any
mention of Frontier and address
the complaints.

Step 2: Being proactive and
empowering their social media
team
The employees were
empowered to help customers
re-book their flights through
Twitter and Facebook.


Glowing results!
Using social media ultimately
allowed Frontiers to serve
customers much faster than
they could have using
“traditional” customer service
counters.

Lots of positive reactions
from “surprised” customers
4000 customers engaged
during the crisis
700,000 visitors to the
Goals Driven
facebook page
Engagement
Customer service
Crisis management

Case-study 2
Eurocontrol: “#flightdelay”

Not really the odd one out

One would expect airlines
and airports to be using social
media to help their
passengers, but the air traffic
control plays an equally
important role in ensuring the
efficient flow of air traffic as
well as providing accurate
information to stakeholders.

This is an especially
important function performed
by Eurocontrol during crises.


#flightdelay proves to be an excellent initiative

Since Eurocontrol joined twitter back in August 2009 the hashtag
#flightdelay has become a familiar sight on aviation related
tweets, and the account @eurocontrol has become a reference point
not only for passengers but also for airline staff.


Effective crisis management
@eurocontrol became famous on Twitter during the Icelandic volcano
crisis that forced the closure of half of Europe’s airspace for several days.
However volcanoes are not the only thing that keeps them busy.
Amongst the most recent crisis are:

 North African revolutions and subsequent airspace closures
“surprise” strike from Spanish air traffic controllers
 Greek strikes and frequent ATC delays
 Italian volcano (mount Etna)
 Portuguese strikes
 Italian strikes

Goals Driven
Customer service
Crisis management

Case-study 3
CityJet: “Twitter concierge service”

Providing local knowledge to busy travelers
Although still in its infancy,
CityJet’s Twitter concierge is
probably the most innovative
tool in airline social media
customer service. The aim is
to provide personalized
recommendations to those
travelers who request them.

The service is currently
undergoing trials but it’s
expected to become
available on all City Jet
destinations and provide
answers within 15 minutes.


Changing times. Changing approaches.

“Twitter has become the „go to‟ tool
for customer service within the
travel industry [….] The majority of
our passengers are business
travelers and the Twitter Concierge
taps into their need for a swift,
efficient and seamless travel
service.”
- Christine Ourmieres, CEO CityJet

Goals Driven
Engagement
Customer service
Revenue


Case-study 4
Air Asia: “Lil' Miss Red”

Spot the right answer!

When you’re a low-cost airline
in need of increasing your
customer service reach do you:

a) Build an expensive
traditional customer service
center with hotlines etc…
Or
b) In true low cost style you
create a dedicated web portal
and social media accounts?


The correct answer is B

Air Asia clearly seems to
think the answer is B.

They were already the
airline that replied to
the highest percentage
of tweets in the world,
but now they are scaling
up their efforts with a
dedicated AskAirAsia
website, a dedicated
Twitter account and a
Facebook tab.


Lil' Miss Red presents…
For its dedicated customer
service website the
company also developed a
nice avatar called “Lil’ Miss
Red” that helps customers
with their questions.

Likewise on the facebook
version of the FAQ search
engine they used the image
of their CEO, Tony
Fernandes.

Goals Driven
Customer service
Revenue


Case-study 5
Qantas: “Managing multiple crises”

Not a good year …
Qantas recently had more than its fair
share of trouble. Amongst the most
recent issues they had to deal with
are:

•The Chilean ash cloud that forced
them to delay/cancel several of
their flights for an extended period
(June)

•Grounding of all flights following
industrial action (29th of October)

•A380 in-flight engine failure and
consequent diversion to Dubai (4th
of November)


The Chilean volcano
The ash cloud from the Chilean volcano caused a huge disruption
affecting over 120,000 customers and overwhelming traditional customer
service channels. Qantas chose to use Twitter and Facebook as
dedicated information + response channels generating some
extremely positive feedback:


Safety first for Qantas!
Social media was also
effectively used to get a strong
safety message out to
customers, thereby reducing
any backlash from cancelled
flights. A video was created
and put on YouTube and then
promoted through Facebook
and Twitter. It received great
positive feedback.

Goals Driven
Engagement
Customer service
Crisis management


3.5 Million followers… on the wrong flight

After such an “intense”
year we can only
speculate on what must
have gone through
Qantas’ social media
team’s minds when they
discovered that a huge
twitter celebrity, Stephen
Fry, was on board the
diverted A380… and that
he was tweeting to his 3.5
Million followers!


A well-executed recovery!
Thankfully Qantas had a response team listening on twitter and managed to
reunite the wallet with his owner, provoking a very positive reaction.

Overall the Social media team
manage to:
• reduce anger by reacting quickly
and being proactive

• get a powerful twitter influencer
on their side

Goals Driven
Engagement
Customer service
Crisis management


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Case-study 6
London Heathrow: “Airport concierge”

Cider anyone?
Having a look at an airport’s twitter feed it would be reasonable to expect to see
a lot of tweets talking about flight delays, people complaining about queues
etc… but at LHR things seems to be a bit different. yes there are all the usual
airport questions but you can also find interactions like this one:


Personalized attention makes people feel important

The most important lesson we can learn from LHR is how to combine the
necessary degree of information dissemination with a bit of helpful human feel.

Especially in a very complex and busy airport like Heathrow providing
information is a fundamental task, and providing personalized advice always
provoke positive reactions and creates happy users.

Goals Driven
• Engagement
• Customer service

Case-study 7
@Deltaassist: “The Pioneer”

Be where your customers want you to be…
Delta was one of the first
airlines to dedicate most
resources to social media. It
was one of the first to put a
booking engine on Facebook
and (after having tasted
tremendous success with
@deltaassist on Twitter) now
is also moving its customer
service there. Why? Simple,
they have realized that
although Twitter is a powerful
tool, there was a part of their
customers that preferred
Facebook.


… and give them what they want
Delta also recognized the need to give the customers what they want, and this
led them to the take the following steps:

A) Guarantee a reply within 10 min on Twitter, because customers
don’t like waiting

B) Dedicate 10 people to social media customer service

C) Create a Spanish language twitter feed to serve its Spanish-
speaking audiences, and (at least occasionally) Portuguese-
speaking too


Great response rates!
Delta’s followers and This is possible due to a
indeed number of tweets dedicated team of about
themselves have doubled 10 people handling
in the six months from customer requests.
March.
March 2011

Sep 2011

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crankyflier/


Delta gets serious about customer service!

Delta Airlines has a
separate, dedicated Twitter
channels to listen and respond
to customers.

What’s remarkable is the effort
put into answering queries from
almost everyone.

Goals Driven
Engagement
Customer service
Revenue


Case-study 8
Warsaw-Chopin Airport: “Preparing for the future”

Preparing for euro 2012…
Warsaw Chopin airport is still a relatively new player in the social media arena,
but it seems to be improving fast with two dedicated Twitter channels and two
Facebook pages catering to local (Polish) and foreign (English Speaking)
passengers respectively

The airport has recently stepped up its social efforts, most likely in preparation
for the Euro 2012 games and, in the process, has become one of the first two
airports (together with Cancun) to open a company page on Google +.


… and showing its crisis management prowess

Recently this airport also got a
chance to show its crisis
management skills on social
media, when an LOT 767 did a
gear up landing that blocked the
airport’s only runway for several
days. The airport responded
promptly and was able to provide
up to date information, both in
Polish and English, that were
widely re-tweeted and
acknowledged


Overall, a fantastic effort!

*Plane “lands”

*The airport
answers its users

*Plane is removed

*Back to
normal
*Compliments and
thank you notes
arrive from
everywhere

Goals Driven
Engagement
Customer service
Crisis management

Case-study 9
KLM: “More than just social”

When social media is in your DNA…

Given KLM’s prowess on
social media (they were the
winners of the SimpliFlying
Social Media Awards this
year), it’s no surprise that
they made it to this list too!

Their Live Reply video will
show you why they’re so
good at tackling customer
service while engaging
customers. Check out the
next slide!


Friendly customer service available 24/7

If you are a KLM passenger
the company will make it
extremely easy for you to
get answers to questions.
They provide 24x7 customer
service on Twitter ,
Facebook and are now
experimenting with Google+
as well.


From virtual to real-life!
What really distinguishes them, however, is their ability to go beyond social
media and into real life. For example during their Live Reply campaign the
company started answering tweets with YouTube videos.
The result:
 Surprised passengers were
more than happy to re-tweet and
share the videos
Followers were attracted to both
facebook and twitter
KLM’s campaign was featured
on important websites and TV
channels

… and all at almost no cost to the Goals Driven
company Engagement
Customer service

Case-study 10
Virgin Atlantic: “Social Snow”

2010 was a difficult winter for airlines!
Three separate, major snow
events in December 2010:
“Snow 1” :closing of Gatwick;
“Snow 2” : extended closing
of Heathrow;
“Snow 3”: closing of JFK and
the heavy snow on the US
eastern seaboard.

They followed in quick
succession, giving little time
for planning to Virgin (as well
as other airlines).


Virgin’s integrated communication strategy

Virgin posted major
updates on their website
every few hours.
They also handled
individual queries via
Facebook and Twitter.

About 50,000 text
messages sent over a
period of a few days to
alert customers about the
disruption and to direct
them to their website or
social channels for more
information.

Huge Twitter customer service effort during
disruption!
Virgin proactively broadcasted
key messages to their social
following as well as answering
as many individual passenger
questions as possible.
This peaked at more than 460
tweets, 1,950 comments and
posts and almost 1 million
post views on Facebook up to
the 19th December.
The social team worked in 8
hour shifts to cover a 24*7,
one-on-one response. At its
peak, they were handling a
Twitter response every 20-30
seconds.


Special chartered flight to repatriate US travellers
for Christmas, FREE!
Since this decision was taken
hurriedly, Twitter and Facebook
were used to inform stranded
customers of the option.

Virgin filled the plane by actively
promoting the flight on Twitter for
several hours. They achieved Top
Tweet status resulting in filling
450 aircraft seats in 7 hours.

The fully-loaded flight left on time
and the customers got back to
New York in time to meet their Goals Driven
family and friends for Christmas. Engagement
This was a first for any airline. Customer service

Bonus Case-Studies
SAS & Vueling know the game too!

SAS Scandinavian: “Facebook customer service”

Incredible customer service through Facebook!

Key features:

• Fast and reliable service.
• Most questions answered
within 10 minutes.
• Key updates provided
regularly.
• General as well as one-on-
one responses provided.
• Every customer receives a
response!
• Resulting in exceptionally
happy and pleased
customers.


Results
SAS’s exceptional dedication to customer service through Facebook has
achieved a number of objectives:

1. Offering a passengers a
near-instant platform to
have their questions/
complaints answered.
2. Drive greater
engagement by keeping
customers happy on
Facebook and talking to
them.
3. A large, satisfied
passenger base who
praise SAS to their
Goals Driven
friends on Facebook
Engagement
Customer service

Happily lost in translation…
Vueling is a Spanish airline based in
Barcelona with an heavy presence on the
web, and a thing for mixing languages in
its advertising campaigns…

It has dedicated news websites, blog,
facebook pages and two twitter accounts,
a corporate one and a customer service
one.

However, despite being more than happy
to mix English and Spanish in its
marketing material, it has decided to limit
its social interaction to Spanish (at least
for now)


So far so good… but change is needed
The company has managed
to build a good image and
following at home.

However, their Spanish only
strategy might be starting to
backfire, at least judging from
the limited, but increasing,
number of English language
tweets that are not being
answered.

Goals Driven
Engagement
Customer service


For more case-studies:

Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably

http://www.SimpliFlying.com www.SimpliFlying.com

Top 10 Customer Service Initiatives on Social Media by Airlines

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