[Anonymous]

[conshaldow]

A very interesting and well thought way of getting your point across to a sometimes troublesome complaints department.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23943480

[canucklad]

Hi conshaldow……

another example of BA lagging behind the times….

as I’ve mentioned on other relevant topics my company has a dedicated social media team that monitors any reference to our company.

They are trained to intervene in real time to resolve any complaints or set straight any false accusations!

they alre also empowered to match the language and tonality of the comment made !

Their challenge is actually to keep up with all the potential sites that could lead to a risk against our brand.

Funny, if BA can’t manage Twitter effectively it’s not likely they monitor this site !

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

I’ve tweeted about East Midland Trains and Southern and they have both responded very quickly – one more personal than the other (one was a bit generic). But at least they picked up on it. Why BA can’t / don’t do this is beyond me. Surely with there global coverage there can be people who can monitor this 24/7. Same goes for any global airline.

[conshaldow]

I’ve saw many companies pick up on tweets. It’s good to hear back from them, even if it is just the generic responses TimFitz mentioned.

I once got a response from a “novelty hat making company” in Chicago who had noticed I had tweeted interest in a certain piece of American Football memorabilia. I stress I hadn’t tweeted directly to them or even mentioned them, yet they managed a response in no time at all.

The fact that a small, independent company in another continent can respond to an indirect, vague tweet while BA can’t respond to a direct and personal plea is fairly worrying.

[SergeantMajor]

Might it be because the small, independent company doesn’t get much twitter interest because, er, it’s small and eager to pick up on the very few people who mention it on the net vs. a huge customer-facing organisation with a massive international customer base using multiple languages/time zones which already has in place systems for customers to feedback using online forms, letter or telephone?

Possibly.

[conshaldow]

Possibly yes that may be the case. My tweet was vague though and as I didn’t directly mention the company I was pleasantly suprised to receive a response.

I don’t know BA’s procedure for customer remarks/complaints that come through social media, but if this is not the correct location for such, I would have expected the members of staff in control of the social media page to forward this inquiry to the correct location, rather than waiting for the tweet to get (what appeared to be) worldwide attention.

If I had been in Hasan Syed’s shoes and received an email from BA which began “In response to the complaint taken up with our social media (twitter) page…” I would have been very happy with the fact that BA took the time to pass it on to the correct department and have my complaint dealt with in the correct manner.

[canucklad]

I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but there is a big part of me that is very apprehensive at the technology that allows companies to track your (albeit public domain) thoughts so quickly.

It does slightly concern me how invasive the technology could be with our supposed private communications…

[conshaldow]

I agree canucklad. It’s an electronic form of the “door to door salesmen”.

They see you have a house, they’ll try to sell you home insurance. They see you tweet a picture of a hat… they’ll try to sell you said hat. Scary times…

[FormerlyDoS]

“Might it be because the small, independent company doesn’t get much twitter interest because, er, it’s small and eager to pick up on the very few people who mention it on the net vs. a huge customer-facing organisation with a massive international customer base using multiple languages/time zones which already has in place systems for customers to feedback using online forms, letter or telephone?”

Might it be because the large company is towards the latter end of the corporate lifecycle and has an inward focus, whilst the small company has an outward orientation?

[canucklad]

You make a very relevant point. FDoS…..

Most established large corporations try and shape their customers behaviour…

i.e… forcing them to manage accounts via websites etc

It took my highy innovative company a while to realise that actually we are moving towards an era where young consumers ,through technology are actually shaping the way companies interact….ie Twitter and Facebook etc,,,

[seanyjmuclhr]

I have used BA’s Twitter handle to lodge complains as well as praise when due and always found them to respond pretty quickly…

[SimonS1]

I don’t think its size – a couple of the big telecoms companies do this. O2 for one.

Of course you always get some companies that are complacent and cannot be bothered.

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