Not many companies get how to use Twitter. @heathrowairport does! Bottom line Twitter and all other social media platforms are about building relationships with customers and entering into a dialogue. Check out @heathrowairport on Twitter. What impresses me about what heathrow airport is doing is that it honestly feels like there is a real person behind the tweets. (of course there is a real person behind @heathrowairport and they are doing a great job. My concern is with other companies who may be devising ways of how they can use a computer to automate their tweets!) For @heathrowairport you get a sense of someone who is friendly, has an engaging personality, is funny, takes the time to listen to what customers are saying, has empathy and is looking out for the passengers just as a friend would.
In my latest article Bacon Baps Build Buddies I reveal how companies can get more out of social media and develop strategies to build relationships with customers. I reveal why achieving customer loyalty is like trying to herd cats impossible and how companies can use social media to build stronger relationships and even partnerships with customers using the principles of friendship: Being supportive, sharing dreams and aspirations and encouraging other friendships. @heathrowairport is a great case study for companies wanting to build stronger relationships with customers. Have a look at a screen grab I took of some of @heathrowairport’s recent tweets, they are friendly and engaging – brilliant!
Another company that gets this is Zappos and you can learn more about Zappos’s approach to customer relationships, social media and unique company culture by listening to an interview I did with the COO of Zappos Afred Lin. While your at it book to come and see Alfred and myself speaking at the European Customer Experience World conference in london 18-19 May 2010
Dean, I wish all airlines flying out of Heathrow had the same approach as the airport itself.
Last Saturday night, I was due to fly on a South African Airways flight from Heathrow to Johannesburg. I checked in online the previous evening. On arriving at Heathrow I was informed that the flight had been cancelled – due to the incoming plane not arriving. That “incoming plane” was the previous evening’s flight from Cape Town.
In other words, when I was checking in, 20 hours prior to flying, SAA would have know that my flight was not going to happen. There was no note about this on their website. Nor did I receive a text message or phone call or email during the day before flying. Why not? How easy would it have been for them to do that?
It’s unbelieavable how slow many industries are to embrace new approaches to real time communication with customers!