United Social Media: Good But Needs Consistency to Be Great

As travelers find themselves in trouble, frustrated or in some positive situations they are more and more likely these days to send a tweet, rather than write a letter to the company they want to criticize or laude. A 2013 J.D. Power and Associates study found that 67 percent of consumers have interacted with a brand on their social media site in some way when they need something from the brand.

That shows that a brand that doesn't effectively use social media as a customer relations tool risks missing out on half of the conversation about their brand and leaves the consumer to have a one-way, often frustrating conversation, with no answer or offer to fix a problem.

United has been one of those airlines that previously ignored social media as a customer relations tool. I can't tell you how many times I have, in the past, tried to get a problem solved by United over social media. I don't expect them to fixt the problem with just 140 characters, but I do expect them to reach out and at least offer to take a look or get me in touch with the right people. After booking an award ticket last fall and having trouble with a supervisor who was rude and wouldn't follow the published rules I reached out over and over and over on Twitter...and what did I get back...crickets.

But hopefully the social media attitude at United is changing. It was great to see that the crew in Chicago is finally realizing that their customers are going to reach out to them via social media and they can either try to be a part of the solution that helps them through the problem, or they can just sit idly and watch customers go to other more responsive airlines (cough American cough cough).

They Should Just Add Onboard Tweeting. ;) 

The best line out of the Chicago Tribune article is from Mark Krolick, United's managing director of marketing and product development who said: 

"Like most companies, we first tried to understand the marketing value of social media," he said. "But over the past year, we have realized a lot of the value in social media comes from being able to better service your customers and having a two-way dialogue versus us only putting marketing material out into the social media channels."

While there has been a noticeable increase in responses by the social team over at United, and they are well on the way to creating that two-way dialogue it's still missing one thing....consistency. On a daily basis I see people in my stream tweeting at American, Alaska and Hyatt, other travel brands that have the same stake United does and those brands respond every time. They respond if the comment is bad, good or neutral. But United doesn't always respond. If I need something from United I will often call first and tweet while I am dialing in. I don't really expect to get a response from the account so I am always surprised when I do. But that consistency is something that I expect and look forward to with other brands like American. Instead of wasting my time on the phone with AA I will just tweet and wait for a response. If United wants to reach that expectation level and provide those positive services for their customers the must be more consistent. Until that point they will lag behind their competitors. 


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