David J. Danto
Principal
Consultant, Collaboration/ AV / Multimedia / Video / UC
Dimension Data
Director of
Emerging Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com 
Follow Video &
Technology Industry News: @NJDavidD
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The Backwards Twitter Barometer
How Social
Media can be used to find out how travel providers are doing
There was an old military joke
that said if you followed the signs pointing to the infirmary backwards then
you’d find out where all the fun activities were taking place (the actual
expression was “where the action is”.)
We may not have the signs anymore, but the interesting times we live in
do have their on-line equivalents which we can follow backwards to see where
the action is – the action in this case being the experiences of happy or
miserable fellow travelers in real time.
Twitter (for the three of you who don’t know) is a social media site
that people and companies use to send out brief (140 character limit) messages
to inform, comment, joke and of course complain. As people decide they want to read your
“tweets” they “follow” you to receive them automatically. While some accounts are definitely more popular
than others (@CNN has 14 Million
followers; @JoeSentMe
has about 8,000; and my feed - @NJDavidD- has about 900 ) what makes Twitter unique
is that it is a completely level playing field.
Anyone can tweet any message to anyone regardless of the number of their
followers. And while it isn’t set up to
be easy, anyone can see any tweet to
anyone. That means a person with no
followers can send a tweet to CNN and everyone can look at it and see how CNN
replied (as long as they search for the reply first.) So web-browsing over to the Twitter page of
the firms in the travel industry - and looking at their replies - is today’s
equivalent of following the infirmary signs backwards. What one sees is spin and marketing free
responses to real time praise, questions and/or complaints – which can be very
revealing about the firm.
Taking a quick peek at “@United”
this morning - the United Airlines Twitter page - and clicking “Tweets and
Replies” reveals these gems:
Apologies for the delays/cancel. Have you
been re-booked? - Our update shows it was due to maintenance. - We're sorry
your experience has been less than acceptable with us. Please tell us about it
here. - Do you still need assistance, or have you been re-booked? - We
understand your anger, unfortunately the extra leg room fee can't be waived. -
Once you file the report & our Baggage Team reviews it, they will contact
you. You may contact them at 800-XXX-XXXX - Apologies for the delay/cancel.
Have you been re-booked? - Although the skies may be clear at your departing,
or destination city, the path there, may not be. - Did we get your bags to you?
- We understand your disappointment, the terms and conditions are that of the
credit card company. - Apologies for the cancellation. Were you able to get
re-booked? - We’re working hard to get Wi-Fi on all our flights. You can see
how we’re doing here: - Thanks for the tweet. We're happy we were able to get
you out, and on your way as well. Enjoy London. - Were you able to get
re-booked? - Multiple factors go into the departure of a flight & it is not
always possible to delay for late connecting customers. - We're glad that you
made it to DFW. We regret that it was such a
difficult day of travel. - Pardon the our late reply.
Do you still need help with rebooking your reservation? - We're disappointed to
hear you feel this way.
Contrasting those typical replies with those of @JetBlue below, one can see
the difference between an airline that claims it’s
“friendly” but provides lousy service with one that takes the customer
experience seriously:
Thanks for sharing Jeanette! We will make
sure to pass along the compliment :) - You bet, Carly. We can't wait to see you
again soon. :) - Why not make your suggestion official?:
- We hope this means that we'll be seeing you again soon! - Ice cream! - That's
what we want to hear. Lean back and enjoy! - We love Fly-Fi photos! Have fun
tweeting from the sky :) - Thanks! Stretch out, relax and enjoy the rest of
your flight! - Thanks, we'll be sure they see your note! - Please see an crewmember for assistance rebooking your flight. - Good
morning! Thanks for the Fly-Fi/Mint note! It would be great if you sent us
another tweet from 35K ft! - Very nice, Sarah! Thanks
for sharing the pic. :) - Thanks for letting us know, Frankie. We'll be sure to
forward your compliment on to leadership. - Awww
yeah! We just know you are going to love it. - You bet! #wegotyou
- Lean back and enjoy! #tweetsfromthesky
- Lean back and s-t-r-e-t-c-h out! - That's awesome! Can't wait to see you
again!
Moving along and taking a look at the lodging industry, here are some
select @HiltonHotels replies:
We will forward this to our Brand
Management, thank you for your feedback.- Hello, thank
you for your interest. Please contact hilton.pr@hilton.com for assistance.
Thanks - Hope you enjoy your lunch :) - Glad to hear you enjoyed your stay!
Hope to see you again soon :) - Glad you've enjoyed your stay, Peter. Hope to
see you again soon :) - This looks delicious Dale, hope it sets you up for a
good day! - Congratulations Kirsty! I hope you have a lovely wedding! - We
appreciate the inquiry. Unfortunately there is not
way that we can arrange a pre-pay to avoid this feel. Thank you. - You made our
day with your extra cute submission to #HiltonStory....
Glad we could make yours! - We look forward to seeing you! :) - Glad to hear
it! :) - We can't wait to see some pics! :) - We wish you were here too! - Glad
we could assist Kathy! :) - Glad you think so :) - Thanks Scott! Enjoy your
day.
And here are some from @Marriott hotels (which
certainly makes me think there are happier people at Hiltons):
Tyrell, we are sorry to hear this. Please
follow & DM us with more information. Thank you!
- We apologize for your disappointment. Please let us know if we may assist. - Sorry
for the delay, Cecil! Feel free to follow & DM us
if we can help with something. - Which hotel? We are happy to share your
feedback with them. - Sheila, please follow & DM
us with additional details so we may look into this. Thank you! - Which hotel,
Dan? We're glad to share your feedback with the property. Thanks! - Hi Steven,
we apologize for the frustration. We're sharing the issue with our Marriott app
team. Thank you for letting us know! - We're sorry to hear this, Barry! Please
follow & DM us with your stay details. Thank you!
- We're sorry for your disappointment. We'll share the feedback with the team
in Manchester. Thank you! - Hi, will you please follow & DM us with additional details? We'd like to learn more.
Thank you. - How exciting! So glad you shared this with us! - We're sorry for
the inconvenience. We'll share this with the hotel. Thanks! - Pls send us a DM w/ details along
w/ contact info. We want to help & apologize for the poor service.
Then finally, just to show that my recent blog on Uber isn’t off base (as thankfully media outlets are starting to
write about how evil a firm it is) here are some selected replies from @Uber
proving it’s not living the rosy picture that its proponents say it is:
Ah that's not good! Looking into this and you
should get a correct receipt emailed. - Sorry to hear that. Can you write in at
http://t.uber.com/support
so we can take a look and help out? - He may be driving with another passenger
and unable to answer. Leave a message and follow up with us via http://t.uber.com/support
- Sorry to hear that Julian. Can you let us know your details at http://t.uber.com/support ?
Our team will be happy to help. - Sorry to hear that. Our @Uber_CHI team will be sure to look into
it. - sorry to hear about the trouble! Please reach
out at http://support.uber.com
so we can look into this for you. - Welcome to New York! - Whoa, that doesn't
sound right. Everything okay? - Sorry to hear that Joey. Someone form our team will reach out momentarily. / @Uber_SF - That doesn't sound right Brett!
Sorry to hear it. If you reply to your receipt we'll be happy to clear things up.
- Happy we could connect you to a driver. Uber on! -
Oh no! Respond to your receipt and we'll look into what happened asap! - That's not right - please respond to that receipt
and we'll take care of that. - This is to compensate for the trip between NJ
and NYC, as well as to account for time spent to get back // @Uber_NYC - It may just be a small delay -
you can reopen the app to double check and cancel if the trip is still in
progress! - That definitely isn't ok - please let us know further details at http://t.uber.com/support
and we'll follow up asap. - Sorry to hear about the
trouble! Respond to your receipt after the ride and we'll look into this for
you.
If you’re interested to know what each of the messages is responding to,
you just have to go to twitter replies on an account and click on the message
to “view conversation.” You’ll be able to
see the praise or rant that led to the company’s response.
Keep in mind that the firm’s CEO is definitely not tweeting these
replies. Far from it in fact. (In many cases it is more likely outsourced
to teenagers in a third world country.)
But the replies – regardless of who sent them – are indicative of what
customers are saying to the firm. If
they are heaped with praise or buried in complaints one can correctly surmise
that there are reasons for both. It
makes for some fascinating reading. I do
recommend going to Twitter.com and setting up an account for yourself – even if
you are not all that interested in Social Media – so you can send your own
comments to these firms and add your voice to the barometer. You can also follow JoeSentMe
and myself if you’re interested in
hearing travel news before everyone else – just click the link and then click
“follow.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finally, I want to thank you all –
the readers of my blogs – for the honor of voting me as one of the Top
10 Business Travel Bloggers. I was
stunned to be nominated - as business travel is something I have to do, not my
career area of expertise. I’m truly
humbled to have squeaked into the final list as number 10. I’m glad that my anecdotes and grumbles
showed value to those who voted.
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This
article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own,
personal opinions. David has over three decades of experience providing problem
solving leadership and innovation in media and unified communications
technologies for various firms in the corporate, broadcasting and academic
worlds including AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan
Stanley, NYU, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase. He now works with Dimension Data as their Principal
Consultant for the collaboration, multimedia, video and AV disciplines. He is
also the IMCCA’s Director of
Emerging Technology. David can be reached at David.Danto@Dimensiondata.com
or DDanto@imcca.org and his full bio and
other blogs and articles can be seen at Danto.info. Please reach-out to David if
you would like to discuss how he can help your organization solve problems,
develop a future-proof collaboration strategy for internal use, or if you would
like his help developing solid, user-focused go-to-market strategies for your
collaboration product or service.
All images and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.