Greg Hounslow is the SimpliFlying Hero for April leading WestJet into the new age of social media

For bringing us campaigns like Winglet Wednesdays and offering exceptional customer service through Twitter, the SimpliFlying Hero for April 2011 is Greg Hounslow, Emerging Media Advisor at WestJet, the man behind the strong social media setup at WestJet.

Greg Hounslow, began his career at WestJet in various front line, leadership and management roles. Through his various experiences and the time he spent learning about social media, Greg realized the essence of social media and how it could be plugged into what WestJet did on a daily basis. As Greg best puts it:

“Since traditional media coverage is in the voice of the author or news reporter, the two-way conversation isn’t always possible. Social media allows us to tell the story in our own words and to communicate both one-to-one and to our fans and followers as a group. Social media is an important part of public relations and it complements our traditional media program.”

With a strong focus on leveraging their high level of real-world customer service and transforming it in an online community, Greg, together with his team of executives who had a unique understanding of social media, identified this as an effective means to communicate and reach out to their customers for Westjet. As described by Greg himself, “We are able to provide our fans and followers with the same WestJet service they would expect in-person”.

Social Media @ Westjet – playing a pivotal role

Social Media has played a critical role in shaping the customer engagement strategies at WestJet. Through a variety of campaigns, WestJet has managed to establish strong personal relationships with its customers that have helped them both in good times and bad.

A few of their popular campaigns include the Care-antee campaign, through which traditional media was channeled into Youtube to share individual messages from WestJetters with the world. Another very popular campaign was Winglet Wednesdays – a great job of brand co-creation and crowdsourcing. The idea began through simple posting photos of winglets by fans on the WestJet Facebook page until a fan suggested that this become a competition. In the words of Greg, “Winglet Wednesday has become an additional opportunity to share a connection with our guests both on board and on the ground.”

In difficult times when WestJet had transitioned to their new SabreSonic reservation system and customers had to face extended wait times on the phones, social media offered an ideal solution to reach out to the customers. WestJet made special provisions like setting up internal processes to allow quick customer services that were being requested and also embraced its fans on Facebook, taking the initiative to answer their questions. They were able to communicate with guests through Facebook and Twitter, often while they waited on the phone.  Thus, they were able to reach out to guests and support them on a digital platform.

Today, the importance of Social Media in WestJet can gauged by what Greg describes his most rewarding experience of building of a social network of over  65,000 people who pay attention to the messages posted and aren’t afraid to participate in the conversation in a meaningful way. Greg says, “Often, fans helped answer each others’ questions. We quickly learned not to underestimate the willingness of our fans to help one another”.

What’s next for Greg and social media at Westjet?

Even though Greg agrees that social media will ever replace traditional public relations completely, having a strong relationship with Westjet’s customers is critical and his team’s social media efforts help foster that relationship. The communications team at WestJet which includes one full-time person dedicated to social media supported by a variety of people assisting, in addition to regular roles, is to be scaled up with new members being added to help plan and implement social activity.

We would like to depart with Greg’s advise for others in similar roles:

Never underestimate the importance of a personal message. An engaged social network is built one person at a time and your strongest supporters will be the ones you communicate with one-to-one. The personal relationships we’ve built have allowed us to differentiate ourselves. ”

We congratulations Greg for his outstanding efforts at WestJet. For his efforts, Greg is entitled to one free month of SimpliFlying Tribes membership, and a discounted rate thereafter.

Know someone who’s worthy of being a SimpliFlying Hero?

Simpliflying Heroesare individuals recognized for outstanding social media use in the world of aviation. Do you know of somebody who uses social media effectively in their airline or airport to achieve specific business results? Or do you think you fit the bill?

Then go ahead and fill up the SimpliFlying Heroes nomination form. By filling out the nomination form, you bring them a step closer to being recognized by SimpliFlying for their efforts.

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