Yesterday I found myself sitting on a plane in Las Vegas dying of heat just as I heard the pilot come on to say we are being delayed so they can fix one of the indicator lights. I was thinking to myself, why not just leave us in the boarding area until this was fixed? So I pulled out my iPhone and opened Twiterrific the application I use for Twitter. Not really thinking much about it this is what I tweeted:
alanunderkofler: Sitting on a HOT Southwest plane in vegas as the mechanic fixes a light bulb! Where is the love?? Why load us up before it is fixed?
As I was reading the many tweets coming in I noticed this response:
SouthwestAir @alanunderkofler I’m so sorry! Hopefully it’ll be fixed soon and you’ll be on your way! Ask the FA for some SWA Dasani cans!
And here we are with a great example of large companies like Southwest Airlines using Twitter to engage their customers. This response did not change the situation but it changed how I was feeling. All of the sudden I was no longer just a number! I was a real customer receiving an actual response to my complaint!
I not only was feeling better but was also reflecting on the hundreds of Southwest Airlines flights from the past. I cannot remember the last time I had something go wrong on a Southwest flight!
Five minutes later we were rolling down the runway and I was once again a happy Southwest Airlines customer. I did manage to get this last tweet off on Twitter before losing my signal (yes I know all phones must be turned off!)
alanunderkofler: @SouthwestAir thanks for the response! Thanks for caring and being such a great example of using twitter for customer care!
So hopefully we will see more and more large companies interacting with customers using Social Media tools like Twitter in the future!
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Alan,
That’s pretty cool. Even though it didn’t change things it does make you feel better that someone out there in twitterland was listening. It was really great to meet you and Angie in Las Vegas at Affiliate Summit. Let’s keep in touch. @BajaLori
Alan,
Sometimes just listening is good customer service isn’t it? I know just knowing that someone heard my complaint makes the problem that much smaller.
Jamie Birch’s last blog post..The offline/online bridge