eroding PR disaster. Customers expect airline websites to be accurate and up-to-date. But during the volcanic-ash crisis last spring, VAA’ s website couldn’ t keep pace with the rapidly changing situation, so it used Facebook and Twitter to communicate with customers. This was well received by some, but VAA learned from irate callers and site visitors that it needed to do an even better job of providing information in a crisis. The company is modifying its site to include a“ rapid response” link to real-time VAA updates on Twitter and Facebook. It sees the various social media as complementary: Fergus Boyd, Virgin Atlantic’ s head of e-business, told us,“ Twitter is no more than a sound bite. Facebook can be an article. The website is for in-depth detail. They all need to signpost each other.”
Continual improvement. For VAA— and for most companies— the biggest social media opportunity lies in gathering insights to drive continual incremental improvements.
For instance, since its founding, in 1984, VAA has built its brand on the customer’ s total experience, from her initial search for a flight to her safe return home. The proliferation of travel blogs has reinforced this emphasis. When the company learned that its loyalty-scheme members were complaining online about tedious, redundant requests for security information, it created a secure opt-in service to eliminate the problem. In response to online-community suggestions, it launched a system to arrange taxi sharing on arrival with passengers from the same flight. None of this represents a shift in strategy: The brand promise hasn’ t changed, but social media dialogue has enabled VAA to keep improving its offer.
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