Dear Radian6,

Our airline has just begun to use your platform for monitoring. Can you tell us how can we extend our social media wings to interact with our passengers and provide exceptional customer service?

Sincerely,
Customer Support Team

Dear Customer,

Great question! We’re sure you don’t need us to tell you that summer is an especially busy time for the travel industry. Families of all sizes are rushing to the next great attraction out of state and spending time with Aunt Margie on the other side of the country.

We’re also sure you know that busy seasons in particular seem to bring an increase in impatience among crowds, as people simply want to get to their destination happy, refreshed and with their prized possessions in tow.

When your customers are traveling, they may have limited bandwidth for interaction as they have an itinerary that may not include online socializing with an airline. In fact, being rushed and busy could result in hastily made comments blurted out in the simplest methods of sharing – on the social web.

Quality vs Quantity

As you are already using Radian6 to monitor mentions of your brand, finding and interacting with your passengers will be an easy next step. It is important to know why you want to interact with your customers.

We want our customers to see us as a friend – to know that we are listening – and to realize we are genuine when we say that we care.

If you are thinking like a customer, you can better appreciate what your customers may like. So keep this in mind when you share content, advice or just reach out in a friendly tone. Make what you say count. Infrequent, compelling interactions will mean more to your customers than a whirlwind of pokes and hellos that only fill a social site up with too much talking.

Come out, come out wherever you are!

Knowing where your customers spend most of their online time talking about you will be key to ensuring you’re involved in the conversations that have the greatest influence.

It is likely a rare occurrence that a customer taps you on your social-web-shoulder, pokes you and giggles then waves frantically in excitement just for the opportunity to be your friend. Customers want to know what’s in it for me? – known in marketing circles as WIIFM. So if you’re waiting for customers to cheerfully connect with you online just because, you may be waiting a long time.

Remember that mention of thinking like a customer? By contemplating how people talk about airlines, air travel in general and most specifically your airline, you will be able to search for specific ways your passengers talk about you. By searching broadly for “Your Airline”, you will possibly receive more mentions than you can easily analyze. Try narrowing your search by thinking: What do our customers love about us? What do they hate?

Add these keywords and phrases to your topic profile and open a topic analysis widget to get a better view of not only what your customers say, but where they are having these conversations. Just drill into the topic analysis widget to view by media type. Wherever the bulk of the conversations are being had, that is the best place to begin engaging. In the example up above of an unnamed airline, you can see that the majority of online conversations about this brand happen in blogs and Twitter.

We found our customers! Now what?

Talk to them. Yeah, we know, that sounds almost too easy – but it is easy! The best place to engage with your customers is in our engagement console. Why, you ask? Because you can listen and respond to your customers all within the same window.

Check out this snapshot of the engagement console. If you have not yet jumped in deep to this great instrument of engaging, let us remind you of the benefits.

We also recommend checking out this overview and the great classes offered by our training team to get you started.

SURPRISE!

Do you remember the excitement you felt when you were given a wrapped gift and the contents of the box were entirely a mystery? Surprises can be exciting, so why not surprise your customers by friending them first and joining in on the conversations they are having about you, about travel in general and their love/need for flying? Customers who experience an interaction from behind a social profile tend to turn their ear towards that brand and actually listen.

Perhaps one of the greatest examples of surprising customers is the KLM Surprises campaign. KLM really took flight using social media to demonstrate just how eager they were to soar above customer’s expectations. Check out the video and accolades to KLM’s social media mastermind Lonneke Verbiezen that everyone is talking about months later. (warning: this video is so full of happy, your smile may hurt!)

So, now that you have begun looking for your customers and listening to how they speak about you so you can be better equipped to interact, you may want to be prepared for a few surprises of your own. Are you sitting down?

Expect turbulence

Interacting with your customers can be fun and should be thoughtful. No matter how great your intentions, it is unlikely that all interactions will be filled with clear skies.

Although social media is an excellent means to monitor how you’re doing overall in popularity contests, those weary passengers may have something to tell you that is not always easy to hear. Upset customers are not ‘just another detractor who may bruise your brand.’

They’re your customers. They have a need to fly, and you can fill it. You WANT their business. Not just once, but time and time again. And even better – you want them to love you enough that they tweet happy thoughts about you to their friends who also carry several frequent flier rewards cards in their wallet.

What can we do about unhappy customers?

It used to be that your unhappy or inquisitive customers had just two options. Visit your customer service desk in person or talk to a live agent on the phone. Today, more and more of your customers are turning to social media first (and sometimes solely) to sing your praises – or speak their mind.

Part of providing excellent customer service is acknowledging what your customers share with you. The social web gives you an excellent opportunity to reach out to your clients in the same fashion they are speaking to/at/about you. This is also a chance to show your fans, foes and hopeful potential passengers how great you are at treating each customer as though they are the most important.

Take the tweet below for example. Here you will see that a customer issue was resolved and the customer even shouted out a thank you and recognition to Southwest Airlines. Not only was the customer grateful, but she was happy enough to share her gratefulness with her friends and followers. Not bad, huh?

Our customer support team has five members. How do we divide the work and share the love without duplicating efforts?

Another great question! If you have not yet carved out a playbook to serve as a guideline for all things customer service, we recommend you start there. Although we love being transparent enough to share ours with you here, your personal playbook should be tailored to suit your airline. What are you going to do about customer inquiries, complaints, comments and kudos? Whatever your plan, be sure to document it in a playbook so that each of your social media responders deliver the image and response that your airline desires.

If you have developed the framework for your playbook already, it’s now time to put your plan in action.

Divide and conquer

You may have elected a member of your team to handle complaints solely, and someone else to handle friendly “Thank you’s”. An Engagement Console Stack works much like air traffic control.

Develop a plan – and stick to it!

The bottom line is, we don’t want to tell you how to run your customer service social media efforts, but we do want to ensure you have the best chance at success. Remember, it’s YOUR plan so spread your wings – the sky’s the limit!

** You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky. ~Amelia Earhart**