Editor’s note: This is a guest post by UK-based Dirk Singer from The Rabbit Agency, which is the creative force behind BMI’s rise on Instagram.

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A year ago, the mobile photo social network Instagram had less than ten million users.  Yet it was growing faster than Facebook or Twitter were at comparable periods.

As a result, it attracted a fair amount of attention, and a few early adopter airline brands signed up, recognising the obvious link between travel and people taking and sharing pictures with their mobile phones. Fast-forward and the now Facebook-owned network has over fifty million users.   However, most airlines still don’t have a presence and many that do are using it sporadically and inconsistently.

We scanned through Instagram to look for 20 airline feeds so we could put together a comparative report.  In fact, even coming up with 20 airlines on Instagram wasn’t as straight-forward as we thought, as a number of major players are notable by their absence.

The infographic we’ve commissioned (see below) shows Air Asia leads in followers, bmibaby on activity and British Airways in likes.  It also throws up a few questions about how most airlines use Instagram and how they could use it more …

SimpliFlying has been talking about the inevitable evolution, if not revolution, in airline/airport customer service following the increase in social media usage by travelers. Today, we’re glad to say that the revolution is finally here. Customer service 2.0 is now a stark reality, and should soon be a pressing need for airlines and airports the world over. Let’s begin by introducing a young lady from AirAsia previously featured in our Customer Service Top 10 who’s at the forefront of this immense change.

 
She’s little, she’s a miss, and she’s red… care to guess who she is?

She’s Lil’ Miss Red, and she’s Air Asia’s Customer Service “ambassador” as well as the core element of the AskAirAsia customer service website.  From now on she will also increasingly become the Air Asia customer service agent as the airline has announced that it will close two of its customer service hotlines in a move towards what it calls its “on-going mission… to utilize technology and practice cost efficiency as well as promoting full automation and self service via the airline’s online channels”.

Although it might seem as just another cost-cutting measure, the …

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Shaun Smith, who has been a key catalyst in expanding management focus from the tactical issues of customer service to the much wider and strategic issue of customer experience. Shaun is also the author of “BOLD”. Find out more about him here.
What’s the biggest obstacle to implementing customer experience successfully?

‘Lack of strategy’ according to Forrester’s annual State of Customer Experience report 2011.

We agree, but strategy in itself – even if it is bold, differentiated and customer-centric – won’t guarantee success. Where we see most companies fail is in the execution.

In our work with brands around the world we see that there is a lack of coherent thinking about how brand positioning, marketing, customer experience and employee experience fit together, and, dovetail they must if you are to be successful. Many of you will be thinking about how to execute your customer experience strategy in 2012 so let’s see what we can learn from a topical example…
A tale of two airlines…
There are two major Asian airlines that have recently posted their 4th quarter results for 2011. They share some common features; both employ very attractive flight attendants dressed in smart red …

It might seem like an anxious start to the new year for AirAsia X, which recently announced that it would be introducing a daily KL-Sydney service and terminating all its flights to Europe and India. Far from being in the doldrums, it’s all part of the airline’s strategy to refocus and strengthen its brand, as its CEO Azran Osman-Rani shared with SimpliFlying in our latest airline strategy podcast.

Listen to the exclusive podcast below.

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(c) 2012 SimpliFlying Podcasts

Note: The HTML5 player above should work with most modern browsers including those in mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone. However, if you’re having trouble playing the file, please use the flash player at the bottom of this post. Please also note that the podcast above has only a snippet of the interview with Azran. To delve deeper into the mind of …

Would you believe it? Only a few days ago, while releasing the case-pack for the Best Airlines Driving Customer Service and Crisis Management we had reported that the total votes for the 2nd SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media had crossed 12,000 in just about a week! We also mentioned how votes had been received from more than 2,500 cities across the world. But today, we have updated figures for you, and we request you to hold your breath!
With about a day still to go for voting (and trust us, a lot of votes come in on the last day), the total number of votes has already crossed 30,000. Moreover, votes have come in from 4500+ cities across the world. How incredibly awesome is that?
Yes, while you gather words and your breath to answer that, this would be a good time to remind you that only a day is left for voting so you can still vote for your favorite airline if you haven’t done so. Do vote if you care about the airline you love! Meanwhile, you can check out the latest result for the current category below. All voting closes September 15….

The buzz is palpable! After a heady round of nominations (69 nominees in 10 days) we’re down to the fun bit – the real voting to shortlist the Top 3 who’ll be invited to Amsterdam on October 10th for the 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media. Amazingly, we received more than 5000 votes in the first 36 hours from more than 1400 cities across the world. Huge, huge numbers! And they’re growing astronomically each day!

To acquaint you better with the nominees in each category of the awards, we’ll be posting case-packs on our SlideShare channel for each of the 5 categories of awards detailing what makes each nominee so special and why they’re in the final list of nominees (the initial list had over 60 candidates!). The campaigns that clinched each airline its position of prestige will be illustrated in detail. We hope you enjoy going through them and revelling in the reflected brilliance of their innovativeness, cleverness and sheer chutzpah.

The first case-pack has 5 case-studies, each illumninating the campaigns of Top 5 nominees in the category “Best use of Social Media to drive Revenue”. As you’ll see, some, like Virgin America jumped …

It’s official. As of July 2011, there are 191 airlines on Twitter, while only 179 airlines have loyalty programs. The first loyalty program came into existence 30 years ago, in the form of AAdvantage by American Airlines, while the first airlines on Twitter joined just 5o months ago: jetBlue and Delta in May 2007. And what a journey it has already been!

SimpliFlying is back with the Monthly Twitter Report (in partnership with Eezeer) for July 2011 in continuation with our coverage and analysis of the dynamic social media landscape for airlines.

A number of facts are immediately clear from this report:

Airlines are using Twitter more than ever before. The number of tweets increased by 51% from March 2011 to July 2011.
However, most of the tweets are being sent out by a small number of the airlines on Twitter. To be precise, 30 airlines account for 84% of the tweets, which is up from 26 providing 80% of the tweets in the May report.
Delta Air Lines still sends and receives the most number of tweets, which has been the trend since the first report. However, while the response rate to public tweets may seem like a paltry …

AirAsia’s rise in the social media sphere has been meteoric to say the least, with the Malaysia-based airline hitting one million fans on its Facebook page at the end of May 2011, becoming the first airline outside the US to do so. This monumental number, which is second in the world only to Southwest Airlines, is attributable in large part to the efforts of Karen Chan, AirAsia’s Interactive Marketing Manager, and her team (photographed below), which is led by their visionary Commercial Head, Kathleen Tan.

For her efforts in leading AirAsia up the ladder of success in social media, and setting an example for other airlines in the region to follow, we’re proud to award Karen the SimpliFlying Hero award for June 2011.
The AirAsia team. From left: Karen Chan, Derik Chew, Swee Ping, Vilon

Tentative beginnings for an Asian upstart

AirAsia’s beginnings in social media were modest. The journey started with a blog that aimed to provide an open platform for AirAsia Allstars and AirAsia customers to share travel stories and feedback, regardless of whether it was good or bad.

At the time, the main fear for the …

I have to admit that I’m a big Singapore Airlines (SIA) fan, and when someone says “you’re a great way to fly”, I can almost sing the SIA melody in my head.  But even I was surprised when SIA announced that they will be launching a low-cost long-haul airline, on the lines of AirAsia X and Jetstar.

Yes, Singapore Airlines is no longer the most profitable airline in the world (Cathay Pacific took over that title), and yes they’re losing market share to the likes of Emirates and AirAsiaX (to a lesser extent), but to go with a business model that’s hardly proven was a surprise move for a brand that’s been risk-averse of late.

While the initial reports stated that a good amount of analysis has gone into the decision and a “largely untapped market” exists, it’s safe to say that SIA is playing catch up in a market carved out in its backyard by AirAsia X and Jetstar. While the key success factor for SIA till date has been its endearing Singapore Girl brand, that’s exactly the dilemma they need to address – whether to extend the brand to the low cost airline or not….

We’ve all seen how @DeltaAssist is helping travelers out on Twitter, and now on Facebook too. Then we learnt that 93.8% of all tweets to airlines in March 2011 were about customer service issues [see infographic]. Seeing these trends, it was only a matter of time before we saw more customer service functions go social. And the latest airline to make this move is AirAsia.
Airline Customer Service on Facebook and Twitter
AirAsia, which is already the airline that replies to the highest percentage of tweets in the world (>40%), has created an AskAirAsia account on Twitter, and also a “tab” on Facebook. They’ve taken a dig at travelers’ frustrations with the call-center and asked them to direct questions to the CEO, Tony Fernandes (though the photo looks a few years old!). Quite a neat way to connect with the customers – or “guest” as they call them on AirAsia.

On Twitter, you can simply tweet a question and expect a quick reply during Malaysia working hours. What will be interesting to note is that the AskAirAsia twitter account doesn’t reply to any issues …