American Airlines: champions of quick, personal engagement

In reading chapter eight of Real Time Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, I found Scott’s point about responding quickly to social media mentions interesting. As someone who uses Twitter as a mode of communication, I often want to engage with writers and businesses directly via Twitter. However, sometimes engagement can be hit or miss depending on who is in charge of responding to my remarks.

I believe that what Scott said is completely correct; corporations, no matter how large, should respond to customers as quickly and ‘casually’ as possible. They should try to be ‘human’ in their interaction, and should try to do so promptly. I would imagine that this is hard to do, especially considering the amount of interaction that big corporations face on mediums such as Twitter and other popular social networks.

However, the impact of this quick, human response reaches far beyond the customer that is being responded to. American Airlines knows this well.

I have a friend who once complained to American Airlines about flying difficulties, and American Airlines responded within minutes, presenting gratitude and a solution. My friend was shocked by the airline’s quick, personal response, prompting him to retweet it. He even wrote a follow-up tweet about his shockingly personal experience (another American Airlines customer had a similar situation, which is included in the photo below).

By doing this, all of my friend’s followers (including myself) saw his interaction with American Airlines. He found a solution to his flying difficulties, and American Airlines increased their reputation with my friend and his followers. Therefore, American Airline's social engagement impacted many more people than just my friend.

While it may seem like social engagement is a big challenge for large corporations and businesses, it is worth it because of the PR gains that come with down-to-earth social engagement. American Airlines (and I’m sure many other large companies) are giving themselves an advantage by following these Twitter interaction tactics.