WaPo: Continental uses internet as customer-service focus group
An excellent story by Del Quentin Wilber in today's Washington Post highlights how Houston-based Continental Airlines has made the internet an important part of its customer-service strategy:
Since being assigned to monitor Flyertalk, http://www.airliners.net and blogs on various Web sites, [Continental rep Scott] O'Leary has solved dozes of problems that irritate road warriors. He has posted more than 500 comments in the past year alone on Flyertalk, most answering questions, shooting down rampant rumors or highlighting a change in the airline's frequent-flier program.
"These are free focus groups," O'Leary said. "Every airline executive in his right mind is reading Flyertalk and other sites. If it is bothering these customers, it is probably bothering others who don't post on the sites."
Using the chat rooms and internal customer-complaint databases, O'Leary has easily spotted problems that sparked debates in the online forums. He has closely tracked discussions on how passengers prefer to print their boarding passes, the timing of the airline's automated upgrade system and the cost of premium wines offered at its exclusive airport clubs.
Most of the issues would appear relatively minor to the average flier, but O'Leary said he can't let them fester in today's competitive environment.
"The easy stuff is done," he said. "We are down to these finite details: the printing of individual boarding passes versus printing all boarding passes."
Last summer, for example, a Flyertalker complained about security procedures for Continental's elite travelers transferring from an international flight to a domestic one at the carrier's hub in Houston. The traveler could not understand why there was not a separate security line for elite fliers as there is in the main terminal.
O'Leary, who meets with Flyertalkers about once every three months at impromptu gatherings all over the country, investigated and found out that nobody had thought to put an EliteAccess blue carpet in the security area in the international section or designate a line for the special fliers. Within days, it was set up.
In another instance, he waded into the charged debate over who can get exit rows, a perk generally reserved for those with some sort of elite status. O'Leary discovered that there was no consistent policy at the airline. After initially deciding to allow only the top fliers to reserve those seats, he noticed fliers with lesser status complaining on Flyertalk. The policy was amended to include those fliers, too -- a direct result of feedback on the site, O'Leary said.
Flyertalkers generally agreed that they enjoyed having O'Leary on their forum because he doesn't overwhelm them with company propaganda and usually answers their questions. They said O'Leary's background as an airline fanatic gives him credibility because "he has been through as many airports and delays as the rest of us," said Richard Baum, a frequent visitor to Flyertalk.
More companies and organizations should be looking at Continental's use of the internet (as a customer-service focus group of sorts) to improve the customer experience (and, presumably, customer loyalty, and ultimately the bottom line).
Indeed, we can think of one local organization that could learn quite a bit from Continental's approach.
RELATED CONVERSATION: FlyerTalk.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/07/07 10:34 AM | Print | Comments (2)
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