Miles & Points

When you participate in an online forum, travel companies may be watching.

Wikipedia defines the term “social media” as online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives. I see social media as one of the key ways customers interact in the Internet age—more specifically, for my purposes, customers who gather on various Web sites to learn about airlines and frequent flier miles.

One carrier that has successfully adopted social media as a resource for customer feedback is Continental Airlines. Scott O’Leary, managing director of customer experience, is the official representative of Continental Airlines and its OnePass program on community discussion sites and serves as a strong presence in this age of proactive customer service.

I recently spoke with O’Leary about his experiences online. “We look very closely at the common sense of customer care,” he said. “There are a number of things that we do to try to stay tuned with the customer. One of the neat things about FlyerTalk [a social media site] is that it takes a lot of the formality out of the equation.”

Does this lack of formality work for airlines, or against them? “I think it’s a good thing,” O’Leary said. “When you look at our most conventional channels, by the time the feedback gets to us, it’s sometimes stale or it’s been reworded. Sometimes it’s good to see the raw feedback from customers.”

I asked if he sees social media sites as forums where “a group of whiners” can congregate. He replied, “What I’ve observed is that on any online forum or blog, the comments are mostly negative. People generally don’t post anything about the wonderful service they’ve received. Usually what they post are exceptions and sometimes those are good—and we love seeing those—and sometimes they are bad or interesting, and we don’t want to bury our heads in the sand and dismiss those as whining.”

Continental is not the only business to take to the Internet to communicate with customers. Starwood Preferred Guest and Delta SkyMiles both have a regular presence in discussion forums. American AAdvantage recently introduced an e-magazine called Milestones, featuring travel-related destination information that changes monthly; the airline asks AAdvantage members to send in photos from the featured destination. Plans are in place for the site to become more interactive in the future. And Southwest Airlines is known for its blog, “Nuts About Southwest.” Although not specifically related to the airline’s frequent flier program, the blog has proved popular.

Other travel loyalty programs have begun to offer their versions of social media—some go to discussion sites their customers already visit, while others have chosen to create a dedicated space where their customers can come to them—and I expect the trend to continue.
________________________________________________________________

RANDY PETERSEN is publisher of InsideFlyer magazine and president of Frequent Flyer Services. Email Randy at editor@executivetravelmag.com.