Note: On April 12, Shashank Nigam, the CEO of SimpliFlying, presented a webinar on Customer Service hosted by Radian6. This article is modified from Radian6′s summary of the webinar. We present here some highlights from the session followed by the full webinar. You can read the original post here.

 
Customer service is real-time
Through social media, customer service has gone real-time and the expectation is now 24/7. Airline customers are turning to social media as another customer service channel. In fact, per Shashank, 71.4% of consumers’ tweets to the airlines are customer service related. Voice calls into customer service centers are projected to decline this year and there are cases where social conversations numbers are equal to voice call numbers.

With this increase in social media customer service traffic, consumer expectations have become more real-time. When asked about satisfaction levels through these new channels, Shashank sees that consumers are pleased to feel acknowledged even if the resolution is not immediate. While some of the top US Airlines are still well over an hour, the top two have their average response times to less than 15 minutes.
(see the entire infographic by Eezeer …

Managing an airline’s presence on social media can be an extremely demanding job. This is due to several reasons attributable to both the platforms used as well as those managing them. One thing is certain: in almost all the conversations I’ve had with airline executives, having a large audience on Twitter and Facebook (the two most popular social media platforms) is a high priority goal. However, many are unsure of what to do when they do get their “dream” audience numbers.

For example, can you answer the following questions:

a)      If your airline has a large number (say 10,000) of followers on Twitter, will you answer queries asked by each of those people?

b)      If yes, how will you manage it? Do you have the resources? More, importantly, will you be able to sustain this as follower numbers increase?

c)      If no, will you choose to respond to only certain people? Is your selection criteria based on any objective parameters?

A recent infographic revealed that more than 180 airlines are now using Twitter. Interestingly, it showed that United Airlines is mentioned in about 160 tweets per day but sends out a paltry 3tweets a day. Also, most of the tweets have something negative …

In a recent conversation with a senior airline executive at a conference in Singapore, he proudly boasted to me how successful his airline’s social media efforts have been. “We will soon be the most followed airline in the country, even ahead of the national carrier!”. I didn’t quite understand what he was so happy about.

Ever since airlines exploded into social media through a multitude of platforms and services, there has been a half-hearted race to gain the proverbial “first-mover advantage”. And too often, airlines trying to one-up one another on follower numbers miss the point of these new mediums. It’s to drive specific business goals and then measure the results.

The two pillars of social media success for airlines

Getting into social media is critical, but not without a strategy

A few years ago, when social media was the new, hesitant, unshapely kid-on-the-block, it seemed to be yet another distraction for teenagers. Today, many airlines, big and small, have leveraged social media to gain access to a hitherto unreachable audience, both in terms of demographics and size.

Although social media provides …

63% of airline executives think that ancillary revenues will be a major source of profits in the future. But are they getting it right with the short-term moves like charging for water and then reversing the charge? Probably not. And this was the issue I addressed in my webinar entitled “Airlines 2.0: 5 ways to unleash the potential of ancillary revenues in a downturn.” The webinar was very well received with some very interesting questions asked by the participants.
And I’m sharing the slides from that webinar here. The slides include a bonus video (see slide 14) which I couldn’t show during the webinar since it wasn’t possible to do it remotely. But I’ve integrated them here exclusively for my blog readers.
Here’s what you’ll learn from these slides:

Make un-bundling work to suit your customers’ lifestyles

Entice customers through “reverse-bundling” in the recession
Maximize existing revenue channels, without compromising the brand
Cultivate new revenue channels using Web 2.0 tools, like Facebook, Twitter and blogs
Increase conversion rates for ancillary channels
Keep the brand intact while …