How Social Media Can Save Airlines Time and Money

(MoneyWatch)  Over at Online Travel Review, Jared Blank has made a case for airlines ignoring complaints via social media. There are some compelling points for his rationale, but I still believe it to be absolutely the wrong strategy. Social media can be a great tool.

As Jared notes, "airline (and hotel) bashing has become so ubiquitous that I would argue it has absolutely no value at all." That's a bold statement to make, and it's probably not true. There is some value, no matter how small. But is there enough value to justify participating in social media efforts?

Jared falls back on this tried and true argument: "For all of the endless and incessant complaining about airlines, there is no indication whatsoever that customer service factors into flight decisions."

He is right, to some extent. People base their decisions primarily on price and schedule for domestic travel. Customer service is down the list, probably because most people assume that all airlines have terrible customer service. He argues that it's a commodity business, and it's hard to argue otherwise (for domestic flying) because nobody tries to outdo the others.

Think about the five (soon to be four) legacy airlines. Some people like Continental better than the rest, but nobody really stands out anymore. On the other hand, we have those airlines that receive high marks for customer service. JetBlue, Southwest, and Virgin America are good examples of those who rank off the charts when compared to their legacy brethren. But what does it get them?

That's the really hard part of the equation here. For people used to relying on solid metrics like ROI, social media just isn't going to give you an easy measure as is something like, say, Google AdWords. The connection is a little less tenuous, but there are some things that can be measured on the cost savings side, and that's the easiest way to justify social media participation, not brand image.

For example, airlines can look at their call center stats. If an issue can be resolved via social media, it will usually take less resource. Let's use the "United Breaks Guitars" example as how this could work.

You might remember when United broke a country singer's guitar and he made a song about it. It became a viral hit and brought United a ton of bad press. If you believe in the importance of a positive brand, that's a bad thing. Others (like Jared) argue that any publicity is good publicity. But let's forget about that touchy-feely measurement and look at something more concrete.

After unsuccessfully dealing with airport customer service folks, our country singer (Dave) turned to the phone. He called the baggage service people, and he ended up dealing with customer relations as well over a long period of time. It took a lot of effort on his part, and it cost United in terms of employee time (each new person had to get caught up and work on the case) and even something as small as telephone costs. This may seem like a small amount, but if you start looking at it over United's entire customer base, the costs add up.

So let's think about it from a social media perspective. Had Dave tweeted his frustration, United could have picked up on it and tried to solve the problem immediately. Instead of getting bad information from airport agents, the United team working the Twitter account could get him exact details. This would free up time for the gate agents to do jobs with more immediate importance, and it helps to potentially catch the problem in the airport instead of waiting for Dave to come home a week later.

Ultimately, the claim could have been settled much faster, with less employee time, lower costs, and oh yeah, less damage to the brand.

While some view social media as simply a fad, I see it as a very efficient customer service tool. Some issues need to be escalated to a call center, of course, but social media enables airlines to catch problems when they're happening and potentially resolve them with minimal effort.

The brand benefit is important as well, but since it's not quantifiable, you'll never be able to convince the bean counters of that. Stick with cost savings metrics and the rest will just be gravy.

Related:

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• Charleston Yeager Airport Expertly Uses Social Media During Recent Aircraft Incident
• Social Media Turns Tiny Mistakes Into Big Headaches for Delta Airlines