Social Customer Service for the Airline · PDF file2 Contents Social Customer Service for the...

Social Customer Service for the Airline Industry

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Contents

Social Customer Service for the Airline Industry: Performance Report

European and North American Comparison

Airline and Individual Continent Analysis

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Section Social Customer Service for the Airline Industry: Performance Report01

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The Continued Importance of Social Customer Service

One of the fundamentals of good social customer service is to respond in a timely manner, answering customers questions and queries. Social customer service has now reached a level of maturity where it is common for consumers to vent their frustration over social, before turning to more traditional channels.

The airline industry is no exception in this area, but it is a unique one. When you tweet a retailer, a hotel, or your insurance provider, fast responses are important, but necessarily not to the minute. For the airline industry, however, real-time service is a must.

It is now common practice to tweet the airline carrier in question if your flight is late, you have limited legroom, or your bag goes missing. This becomes even more critical when you consider that as far back as 2011, 81.8% of all tweets from passengers to airlines were regarding a customer service issue. Airlines that fail to offer real-time service can face serious repercussions and online dissatisfaction from an alienated customer base. Even those that offer partial 9-to-5 service, but not 24 hours a day/7 days a week, risk these consequences from customers flying outside these hours of operation.

There are additional factors that make it even more important for airlines to be proactive over social–rather than reactive, especially when considering disruptions to travel. By reaching out to customers that indirectly mention you, or by responding to a customer based on a certain keyword, you have the ability to proactively engage. In fact, one of the best examples of social customer service, by KLM, was born out of a crisis with proactive engagement.

January’s Worldwide Travel Disruption

Post Christmas has been one of the worst in recent memory for travel disruption, with many airline providers experiencing these ‘unforeseen circumstances.’ In fact, the weather conditions have been the worst on record for 25 years, resulting in a wrath of the angry commuters as snow hit North America causing travel disruption worldwide.

In an overcrowded marketplace full of many airline providers vying for market dominance, the implications of poor service are real and need to be faced head on. After all, a satisfied customer is a frequent one.

With this in mind, we took a look at the performance of 20 leading airlines providers from Europe and North America, analyzing one weeks worth of social interactions over Twitter. Using our Twitter Performance Tracker, we looked closely at two important metrics: issue response time and that of social responsiveness.

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Methodology

In all cases we used the Twitter Search API to find all mentions of @ mentions (up to the first 2,001). We then gathered the replies that the brand Twitter handle made, we automatically matched replies to mentions to calculate the time taken in each case. The slowest 5% of tweets (were excluded to ensure that results were not disproportionately affected).

The airlines were then ranked according to the criteria below:

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Responsiveness:

60%+: Very Responsive 20-59.9%: Responsive 5.01%-19.9%: Somewhat Responsive

0.01%-5%: Not Very Responsive 0%: Unresponsive

Response speed:

Very Fast: Under 30 Minutes Fast: Under 1 hour Average: Under 4 hours Below Average: Under 24 hours

Slow: Over 24 hours

Section Airline and Individual Continent Analysis02

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European Airlines

Responsiveness: Responsive@Iberia replied to 41.4% of all mentions

@Iberia made 4.1 replies per hour

Mean response time: AverageOn average, @Iberia took 1 hr 31 mins to respond

@Iberia

Average @mentions received per hour Responses Under 1 Hour

Fastest Response Slowest Response

7.6 77.3%

28 secs 2 days 8 hrs

Responsiveness: Responsive@British_Airways replied to 20.1% of all mentions

@British_Airways made 3.3 replies per hour

Mean response time: Below AverageOn average, @British_Airways took 4 hrs to respond



16.3 41.8%

2 mins 13s 1 day 14 hrs

@British_Airways

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@airberlin replied to 16.2% of all mentions @airberlin made 0.2 replies per hour

Mean response time: AverageOn average, @airberlin took 3 hrs 47 mins to respond

@airberlin



1.5 51.1%

1 min 30 s 3 days

Responsiveness: Responsive@easyJet replied to 28.0% of all mentions

@easyJet made 2.5 replies per hour

Mean response time: FastOn average, @easyJet took 47 mins 26s to respond



7.6 83.7%

50secs 14 hrs 1 min

@easyJet

Responsiveness: Somewhat Responsive

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@Ryanair replied to 14.6% of all mentions @Ryanair made 1.7 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @Ryanair took 24 mins 14s to respond

@Ryanair



11.7 87.6%

33 s 3 days 4 hrs

Responsiveness: Somewhat Responsive@lufthansa replied to 19.5% of all mentions

@lufthansa made 0.9 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @lufthansa took 15 mins 37s to respond



4.4 96.3%

3 mins 13 s 2 hrs 28 mins

@Lufthansa


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@SAS replied to 15.1% of all mentions @SAS made 0.2 replies per hour

Mean response time: AverageOn average, @SAS took 1 hr 45 mins to respond

@SAS



1.5 65.9%

1 min 17 hrs 26 mins

Responsiveness: Not Very Responsive@Fly_Norwegian replied to 2.5% of all mentions

@Fly_Norwegian made 0.0 replies per hour

Mean response time: Below AverageOn average, @Fly_Norwegian took 4 hrs 34 mins to respond



1.7 55.6%

4 mins 47 s 17 hrs 50 mins

@Fly_Norwegian


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@aeroflot replied to 21.0% of all mentions @aeroflot made 1.0 replies per hour

Mean response time: AverageOn average, @aeroflot took 1 hr 28 mins to respond

@aeroflot



4.5 72.2%

54 secs 1 day 18 hrs

Responsiveness: Somewhat Responsive@Alitalia replied to 9.6% of all mentions

@Alitalia made 0.1 replies per hour

Mean response time: AverageOn average, @Alitalia took 2 hrs 14 mins to respond



1.3 54.2%

1 min 40 s 19 hrs 58 mins

@Alitalia

Responsiveness: Responsive

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Overview of European Airline Analysis

-@Iberia once more stood out with the fastest response time, responding to one social

question in just 28 seconds

-@Iberia was the most responsive European Airlines on Twitter, replying to 41.4% of all

mentions

-@Lufthansa had the best average response time–answering questions over social in 15m

and 37s on average

-40% of European airlines are considered responsive to brand mentions on Twitter

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North American Airlines

@AmericanAir replied to 65.6% of all mentions @AmericanAir made 31.4 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @AmericanAir took 4 mins 2s to respond

@AmericanAir



47.7 100%

23 secs 23 mins 41 s

Responsiveness: Responsive@united replied to 51.6% of all mentions

@united made 24.4 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @united took 27 mins 23s to respond



46.3 85.4%


@united

Responsiveness: Very Responsive

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@JetBlue replied to 39.2% of all mentions @JetBlue made 6.1 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @JetBlue took 8 mins 27s to respond

@JetBlue



15.2 99.5%

36 secs 1 hr 22 mins

Responsiveness: Responsive@DeltaAssist replied to 51.8% of all mentions

@DeltaAssist made 9.5 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @DeltaAssist took 7 mins 59s to respond



15.1 96.5%

8 secs 7 hrs 32 mins

@DeltaAssist


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@VirginAmerica replied to 23.0% of all mentions @VirginAmerica made 2.4 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @VirginAmerica took 28 mins 7s to respond

@VirginAmerica



10.2 84.8%

1 min 1 day 7 hrs

Responsiveness: Not Very Responsive@SouthwestAir replied to 1.7% of all mentions

@SouthwestAir made 0.3 replies per hour

Mean response time: FastOn average, @SouthwestAir took 40 mins 59s to respond



17.4 74.3%


@SouthwestAir


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@FrontierCare replied to 56.9% of all mentions @FrontierCare made 1.4 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @FrontierCare took 8 mins 16s to respond

@FrontierCare



2.3 96.3%


Responsiveness: Responsive@AirCanada replied to 45.7% of all mentions

@AirCanada made 5.1 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @AirCanada took 18 mins 7s to respond



10.5 89%

53 secs 8 hr 29 mins

@AirCanada


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@WestJet replied to 34.7% of all mentions @WestJet made 2.8 replies per hour

Mean response time: AverageOn average, @WestJet took 3 hrs 14 mins to respond

@WestJet



7.6 57%


Responsiveness: Responsive@AlaskaAir replied to 36.5% of all mentions

@AlaskaAir made 2.7 replies per hour

Mean response time: Very FastOn average, @AlaskaAir took 9 mins 23s to respond



6.5 92.3%


@AlaskaAir


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Overview of North American Airline Analysis

-@DeltaAssist impressed with the fastest response time, responding to one social

question in just 8 seconds

-@AmericanAir was the most responsive North American Airline on Twitter, replying

to 65.6% of all mentions

-@AmericanAir has the best average response time–answering questions over social in 4m

and 2s on average

-90% of the North American airlines are considered to be responsive to brand mentions

on Twitter, with the exception of Southwest Airlines who only responds to 1.7% of all

mentions

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Section03

European and North AmercianComparison

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European and North American Comparison

Response Time

Region Average Best Worst

European 2 Hours, 5 Minutes 28 Seconds 2 Days, 8 Hours

North American 34 Minutes, 40 Sec 8 Seconds 1 Day, 7 Hours

Combined 1 Hour, 19 Minutes 8 Seconds 2 Days, 8 Hours

Responsiveness

European: The average responsiveness was 18.8% None of the analyzed European airlines responded to over 50% of @ mentions.

North American: The average responsiveness was 40.8% American Air, Delta, Frontier and United responded to over 50% of @ mentions.

Combined: The average responsiveness of all 20 analyzed brands was 29.8%

Average Twitter Response Time Responsiveness Over Twitter

60%

20% 30%

10%

10%50%

Very Responsive 1 Airlines

Somewhat Responsive 4 Airlines

Not Very Responsive 2 Airlines

Responsive 12 Airlines

5%

5%

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Fast 2 Airlines

Average 6 Airlines

Below Average 2 Airlines

Very Fast 10 Airlines

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North America Leads the Way

-Better Results: North America has a better average response time of 34m 40s–compared to a European average response time of 2hrs 5mins. Backed up with 90% of North American airlines being considered responsive over social, compared to just 40% of European airlines. The best performing airline–@AmericanAir–is also North American.

-Higher Volume: We can assume from the volume of @ mentions per hour that social customer service is more prolific as a service channel for customers travelling on North American airlines. Of the 237 direct @ mentions our airlines received, 76% were for North American airlines alone.

-Separate Care Handles: Two of our North American airlines also use a dedicated social customer service Twitter handle–@DeltaAssist and @FrontierCare–with them both in the top performing airlines from the 20 analyzed. Brands are sometimes reluctant to separate customer service from their marketing Twitter handle. But in this case, having a dedicated handle has proven beneficial, both in terms of response times and responsiveness.

-Meeting Customer Expectations: 9/10 of North American airlines–compared to 3/10 of European–had an average response time of under an hour. This is business critical when you consider the nature of the industry, where news and information is needed instantly. While the bulk of European airlines struggled to keep up with this expectation, we’ve found that the majority of North American carriers fell within this expected time frame.

However there is still room for improvement for all our analyzed airlines, with substantial gains to be made in both response times and responsiveness for some. For others it is a case of maintaining this performance, something that is harder said than done in the modern age of social service.

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Section04

Recommendations

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Below are our top tips to help effectively utilize social as a customer service tool.

Keep customer service in the call center

There are a lot of opinions on who should own social customer service. In our experience we have found that customer service agents are in the best position to offer support due to their original skill set and availability of information systems/knowledge bases–thus reducing average handling time and improving service quality.

Provide real-time customer information

Prioritize conversations that need a response right away, and make sure your social media team is well connected enough to give customers the information they need.

Don’t divert from social

Honoring the customer’s choice of channel offers a better experience, as well as valuable information for other customers looking for answers. Only take the issue off social when sensitive information is required.

Offer human interaction

No one wants to feel that they’re getting an automated, generic response. Use the customer’s name, apologize where it’s merited, and make sure that you’ve addressed their issue directly and explicitly.

Don’t hide from negativity

The only thing worse than looking as though you aren’t interested by not responding is actively deleting angry messages. Confront customers’ complaints head-on, and you’ll be surprised by how negativity diffuses.

Collaborate with your team to maximize success

Ensure that all members of your social team can easily communicate with each other to solve customer service issues. It’s important not only for them but for your business as a whole to be able to effectively work internally as a group.

Social customer service resolution is still a challenge for many brands, including airlines. But if you have the right technology and process in place you can tackle the issues head on. By having the ability to integrate workflows, approvals, customer data and prior engagement history into a single view and platform, you’ll be able to scale your social customer service. As a result you will have the ability to deliver a truly cohesive and effective customer experience--answering questions quickly and effectively. Conversocial can help you achieve this.

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