SOUTHWEST FLIGHT STATUS PROFESSIONAL

The star of these videos was Brooks Thomas, who I interviewed on my Social Pros podcast in happier times. Southwest took an innovative and effective approach to humanization through the use of Facebook Live video to keep customers informed and to underscore apologies. It is much harder to be mad at a person – any person – than it is to be made at a company or brand. In any customer service scenario, humanity is key. Grade – A Lesson 2: Live Video is a Terrific Social Media Crisis Tool Yet, it’s not at all uncommon for companies to dance around the issue, even when they are clearly in the wrong, and refuse to apologize. There is no factual basis for this, as I uncovered in my book, Hug Your Haters. Many companies forbid their social media customer care teams from apologizing for anything in a public forum, believing it opens the company to legal liability down the line. This may seem self-evident and trivial, but it’s not. Lesson 1: Say You’re Sorry and Mean Itįrom the very beginning, the Southwest online representatives took complete ownership of the crisis, and apologized (with evident sincerity) to customers at every turn, both in social media and in explanatory We’re so sorry to hear about the cancellation and we cannot thank you enough for your patience with our services today. How did they do, and what can we learn from how they handled this extraordinary social media crisis? I’ve been watching their moves closely, and I’ve identified 6 social media crisis lessons. Southwest’s customer service, social media, and operations teams were besieged by the red hot anger of some 250,000 irate passengers. Some passengers were kept informed, others were left to fend for themselves. Some passengers got hotel vouchers, others did not. The magnitude of the issues were nearly unprecedented in American aviation, and the computer outages left airport personnel able to receive only minimal communication from corporate, causing huge inconsistencies in what passengers were told, and how they were treated. To get back on track, the airline cancelled nearly 2,000 flights causing a four-day tsunami of customer frustration. Southwest Airlines experienced a massive technology failure, rendering huge portions of their computer systems inoperable for more than 12 hours.

SOUTHWEST FLIGHT STATUS PROFESSIONAL

Last week featured the nightmare that every social media manager, community manager, and social media customer service professional fears.

Southwest flight status