A Seattle woman tweets from an airport that JetBlue’s birthday present to her was forgetting to put her wheelchair on her flight. Seven minutes later, an airline official tweets back that the crew will work quickly to make things right.
On a Facebook page used by Delta Air Lines, a traveler suggests Delta wrap its Wi-Fi fee into its ticket price rather than charge separately. The airline doesn’t respond. The page mainly promotes the airline, talks up new services and offers travelers tips on popular things to do in the cities Delta flies to, like Las Vegas.
Discount airlines have traditionally outflanked the big network carriers in customer service and low fares, and it appears they’re extending their advantage to social media. The discounters often respond with quick feedback to travelers’ concerns on social networking sites, while traditional network carriers peddle last-minute fare deals but seem slow to embrace Twitter and Facebook to beef up customer service.
Customers crave good service and reward airlines that provide it.
A survey cited in a July report by Forrester Research showed that 68 percent of U.S. online leisure travelers say they’d be willing to recommend carriers to family and friends if the company made them feel like a valued customer.
That’s a tantalizing incentive for airlines to transform customer service from the dull telephone and e-mail route into the online networking channel — where every customer can speak his mind to the masses — at a time when the weak economy has caused their revenue to plummet.
The Internet has opened the door to millions of people to beam their views across the planet on everything from the quality of airplane food to how long they waited on the tarmac to take off. This presents a conundrum for some airlines.
It takes manpower to troll social networking sites that are…