It is undeniable that there is an
exponential growth in trends of business turning to social media as their
communication platform to the wider society. But the main question is, how far
they could utilize this medium?
I have recently read “Socialnomics”
by Eric Qualman (as mentioned by Peter Wagstaff in his first lecture of the
semester), and he point out a couple of example how business utilize social
media like twitter as their customer service “hotline”. He mentioned a pretty
interesting example of @Jetblue case with a number of their customers that felt
being “followed” on twitter. And in response to the customers that felt being
“followed”, Jet Blue are sending them a message, that says:
“…… its merely me and my team keeping our ears to the ground and
listening to our customers talk in open forums so we can improve our service.
Its not marketing, its trying to engage on a level other than mass broadcast,
something I personally believe more companies should try to do.” and
apparently it was sent by their Corporate Communications manager.
This case shows that even though
social media is engaging, monstrous communication platform, but they still have
to be carefully implemented and monitor. Slight mistakes in social media could
bring a massive fatal impact, as it is instant sharing of information, worldwide.
The one point that capture my attention in the response letter sent by Jetblue
is how they stated, “Its not marketing, it’s
trying to engage on a level other than mass broadcast”.Should they even say that? Is it just another marketing gimmick or they
sincerely want to engage and establishing relationship with their customers?
Well, I personally think that its
just another marketing gimmick that intends to construct a brand images that
customer-friendly. And it shows that they fully acknowledge that as an airline
company, its rather critical to maintain and improve their customer service to
maintain their competitive edge in the industry. Also, it seems that they are
following the trend of social media, and utilize this so called most influential tool like twitter to
keep their brand relevant to today’s society, and yet they might not properly
utilize it.
I am not against the idea of
using twitter as part of customer service; however there are some other way to
utilize it. A good example of how to properly utilize twitter is displayed by
Comcast, where they assigned representatives (@comcaststeve,
@comcastmichael,etc) to immediately respond to the enquiries and feedback from
public. It is like a call operator but in twitter version. It’s interesting to
see the overflowing number of company or brands twitter account that try to
engage with the public and yet only a few of them that utilize it properly.
So, what do you guys think? ? Is it just another marketing gimmick or
they sincerely want to engage and establishing relationship with their
customers?
Sound off below and tell me what
you think! :)
Tha!
