During the 2010 blizzard #snowmageddon, Virgin America faced a crisis of social media backlash due to overwhelmed customer service and negative customer sentiment. The airline adopted Sprinklr's reporting dashboards to enhance its customer service response, resulting in improved communication and service, which mitigated social negativity and improved public perception. This incident highlighted the essential role of social media in crisis management and the importance of technology in addressing customer needs effectively.

1. C O N F I DENT I AL + N O T F O R D I ST R I B UT I O N
How Virgin America Soared During #Snowmageddon
Objective: PR/Crisis Management, Customer Service Solution: Sprinklr Reporting Dashboards and Monitoring Dashboards
The Story
On the day after Christmas 2010, a blizzard dumped up to 32
inches of snow up and down the Northeastern seaboard. Chaos
ensued with the streets of Manhattan becoming paralyzed by
five-foot snowdrifts and thousands of passengers were stranded
at JFK Airport. With airline phone lines overwhelmed by the call
volume, many disgruntled flyers took to Twitter to ask for help
rebooking flights or to complain about their situation. Under the
hashtag #Snowmageddon, many airlines took a PR beating for not
being more responsive during the crisis.
What Happened? The Results
• Receiving thousands of Tweets complaining about slow
response times and threatening to never fly Virgin America again,
the company knew it had to act fast. Competitors such as JetBlue
and Southwest already had their social media channels handling
customer service issues, while some other airlines were getting
hammered on Twitter for not responding to customers at all.
Virgin had to immediately assess the landscape and figure out
how to maintain the level of service its guests expected.
• On the fly, Virgin’s small social team put together a train-
ing document to teach its Guest Relations team how to use the
Sprinklr platform, which included keyword filtering by flight
information, template response for FAQs and prioritized rebook-
ing based on some guests’ specific needs. For the first time,
Virgin’s social channels were being used to address the surging
demands placed on the Guest Relations Department.
• Using Sprinklr's Reporting Dashboard, data could quickly be
shared at the executive level highlighting keyword usage to
provide a quick snapshot of on-the-ground sentiment (i.e., “JFK,”
“delay,” “horrible,” “mad,” “Virgin,” “snow,” “hungry,” etc.).
Additionally, these dashboards identified influencers or media
who Retweeted any complaint about Virgin.
share with a colleague
e n a b l i n g t h e e n t e r p r i s e to b e S o c i a l @ S c a l e
CONFIDENTIAL + NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION | © SPRINKLR, 2012

2. C O N F I DENT I AL + N O T F O R D I ST R I B UT I O N
How Virgin America Soared During #Snowmageddon
Objective: PR/Crisis Management, Customer Service Solution: Sprinklr Reporting Dashboards and Monitoring Dashboards
• Through this ongoing analysis, operations executives were able to make more immediate and informed
decisions on whether they needed to send food to people waiting in the gate areas or send buses to
take people to hotels for the evening. These reports could be deployed very quickly within Sprinklr and
immediately shared with any members of the Virgin America team.
• #Snowmageddon marked the first time where Social played a much bigger role in sharing information
than traditional channels, such as phone, email or the airline’s Website.
• Virgin’s quick reaction and communication during the crisis dramatically reduced the volume of social
negativity about the brand and boosted public perception that the airline was doing everything in its
power to help passengers in need.
What You C an Le arn
It’s About Technology + Related Services
Social@Scale Technology: Natural Language Processing (“the Zengine”)
enables real-time scoring of huge volumes of messages, identifying
potential issues as soon as they arise.
Social@Scale Governance Framework: Pre-approved message templates,
response protocols and escalation procedures laid out before a crisis saves
time, increases focus and reduces risk.
Social@Scale Audience: Sprinklr’s algorithms can prioritize and assign
responses to messages based on an audience member’s influence. The
platform also manages conversations in multiple languages.
share with a colleague
e n a b l i n g t h e e n t e r p r i s e to b e S o c i a l @ S c a l e
CONFIDENTIAL + NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION | © SPRINKLR, 2012