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A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

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Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#41

Post by boyce »

jorts wrote: post #18

Tweets are a terrible communication channel for solving customer service related issues. I run a customer support team, and almost all of our customer service related tweets end up with us either emailing the customer directly (if we can identify them) or asking them to email us so that we can get more information about their issue/concern. Text at least gives you a private chat where you can give information that yo…

On the other hand, isn't customer service the one big opportunity remaining to Twitter? They could bring back the text message system for paying businesses. Revamp Tweetdeck into a tool more focused on reputation management etc. They don't need to chase the celebs and fandoms away but they are gradually leaving anyway. Journos will likely stay, the ticks make them feel big.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#42

Post by ryanmarsh »

ubernostrum wrote: post #30
ryanmarsh wrote: post #7

I fly weekly. After every flight and almost every phone call I get an email requesting I take a survey. Knowing how metrics driven most big companies are (I'm a consultant) I have to assume that for all the complaining nobody is filling out these surveys. When I fill them out things happen. Every time I give a negative review I find myself higher in the upgrade list or upgraded outright. It's actually a "hack" anothe…

If you fly "weekly", then as long as it's a round trip of at least one segment each direction, you're going to hit 100+ segments/year. And as long as you spend enough on tickets to hit threshold, that's in at least the platinum tier of all three major US airlines, and knocking on the door of their top tier. You shouldn't be surprised that you're getting upgraded.

sigh I know what airline status is thanks. I also know where I normally sit in the list of upgrades given the route and number of empty seats.

When I respond negatively to surveys I get upgraded almost immediately, others have noticed this trend as well.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#43

Post by mv4 »

jorts wrote: post #18

Tweets are a terrible communication channel for solving customer service related issues. I run a customer support team, and almost all of our customer service related tweets end up with us either emailing the customer directly (if we can identify them) or asking them to email us so that we can get more information about their issue/concern. Text at least gives you a private chat where you can give information that yo…

why can't you use DM?

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#44

Post by samstave »

criddell wrote: post #33
samstave wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago I started crating email aliases on my mail server for various things. I would typically make an email alias for a company that was [company-name]@my-domain.com and use that as my contact email for correspondence with said company. So, I was doing something with the DMV online - and I created the alias "dmv@my-domain.com" to communicate with them via... They sent their lawyers after me and sent me cease and…

That's when you change the alias to the DMV lawyer's name.

Oh dear lord that would have been genius!!!

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#45

Post by Sleeep »

Old_Thrashbarg wrote: post #24

I'm disappointed to see more companies trending towards text messages. Text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication, but some companies (like my network carrier) text me to let me know things like my bill was auto-paid. I'll be in the middle of coding and my phone goes off, so I stop everything I'm doing to see that my monthly was autopaid. With email, I check it every 2 hours to minimize distrac…

1) I'm pretty baffled by "text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication." There's absolutely no "correct" way to use text messaging, I don't use them for time sensitive communication, I treat text messages the opposite way, I'll get to my text messages when I get to them. If you want my attention now, call. I am not alone in this considering half the time I send a text in the morning I don't get a response until the afternoon. I actually anticipate this since I [naïvely?] assume people are actually working while at work. For me, I'll check my notifications at work when I get up to go to the bathroom or get coffee.

2) [Almost?] all companies let you opt out of text message notifications and/or customize it, I've never seen a company that didn't. For example, for Verizon I just go into "Manage your communications and alerts" online and set it to "email" rather than "text." Phone companies set text by default only because they already have your phone number.

3) Assuming you don't have a dumb phone, this is a solved problem, just put your phone on "do not disturb" while you are working. You can set it to where priority numbers (like your spouse) still give you notifications for emergencies. You can even set "do not disturb" to automatically coincide with your calendar events and/or time of day.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#46

Post by CaptSpify »

Spivak wrote: post #2

I get that it's a catchy title and all, but give the airlines a chance here. This seems like a genuine attempt to provide better customer service and we should applaud companies for actually bothering to try.

If their standard channels for support were useful, then complaining on twitter would't be a problem. This is fixing the wrong issue.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#47

Post by passivepinetree »

maehwasu wrote: post #28
ryanmarsh wrote: post #7

I fly weekly. After every flight and almost every phone call I get an email requesting I take a survey. Knowing how metrics driven most big companies are (I'm a consultant) I have to assume that for all the complaining nobody is filling out these surveys. When I fill them out things happen. Every time I give a negative review I find myself higher in the upgrade list or upgraded outright. It's actually a "hack" anothe…

That's such horrible incentive-setting on their part--and now I really want to try it...

Well, maybe. Even if your general experience was positive, if you give honest negative feedback about certain aspects of their service then that could be useful information to the airline.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#48

Post by hammock »

nathancahill wrote: post #36
jorts wrote: post #18

Tweets are a terrible communication channel for solving customer service related issues. I run a customer support team, and almost all of our customer service related tweets end up with us either emailing the customer directly (if we can identify them) or asking them to email us so that we can get more information about their issue/concern. Text at least gives you a private chat where you can give information that yo…

No way, tweets are great. It's the only way I've been able to connect to airlines immediately (once after waiting on hold for 4+ hours). Most quickly jump to private DMs. No more phonetic spelling my confirmation number over a bad phone connection. Problems get taken care of really quickly, but even it they aren't, I'm able to do other stuff while I wait, unlike waiting on hold, which really saps attention (constantl…

>tweets are great. It's the only way I've been able to connect to airlines immediately (once after waiting on hold for 4+ hours)

That is true, but has less to do with the platform and more to do with how few people are on it, compared to how many dedicated social media person(s) there are responding.

In other words, so few people know how to send a tweet (vs send an email or make a phone call) that you are competing for more attention with less other customers. If your grandma suddenly became more comfortable sending a tweet than making a phone call, that would change.

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