AIRLINE SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLOOK 2018 - Amazon …veilletourisme.s3.amazonaws.com/2017/10/airline-social...I hope you find the insights from the Airline Social Media Outlook Report 2018

AIRLINE SOCIAL MEDIAOUTLOOK2018

Every year since 2010, SimpliFlying has surveyed airline professionals globally to get their perspectives on the present and the future of social media in aviation. We publish our findings based on this survey in our annual Social Media Outlook Report.

The objective of this report is to help airlines stay abreast of the latest trends and to benchmark themselves against the competition. We enable this by presenting findings, trends and actionable insights derived from the survey data in an easy to understand format.

For the 2018 report, 117 professionals from 83 airlines across the world participated in our survey, making it one of our most widely taken Social Media Outlook surveys till date.

Building on the trends from last year. this year’s survey shows a continued push towards increasing social media staff, with added responsibilities. The continued popularity of dedicated teams along with the sudden rise in prominence of hybrid teams indicates airlines are taking social media seriously and are grappling with the best way to drive key objectives. Further, providing customer service through social media, which emerged as a priority last year, has now taken centre stage. In fact, a growing number of organisations have even placed their social media teams within their customer service departments. In addition, there are a few surprising findings in this year’s report too.

I hope you find the insights from the Airline Social Media Outlook Report 2018 helpful in building consensus, securing budgets and adapting your airline for the future.

Dedicatedly yours, Shashank Nigam CEO, SimpliFlying

Executive Summary

Table of ContentsKey findings for 2017/18 .......................................................................................................................................................................... 04

Team Structures .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 05 Understanding the hybrid structure ............................................................................................................................ 05

Dedicated vs Hybrid? ....................................................................................................................................................... 06

Callout section - Volaris re-jigs team structure to drive results ....................................................................... 06

Team sizes continue to grow ........................................................................................................................................ 07

External agencies most expensive way to do social media ............................................................................ 08

Social media increasingly housed in marketing and customer service departments ........................... 09

Strategic Focus .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Social media gains importance in the C-suite ....................................................................................................... 10

Social customer service more important than branding .................................................................................... 11

Crisis communications gains focus as a new priority .......................................................................................... 12

Budgets ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13Measurement ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 Use of social media metrics and data analytics remain underdeveloped .................................................. 16

Callout section - Cebu Pacific Transforms Social Care ...................................................................................... 20

Key Challenges ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 C-Suite concerns regarding ROI of social media ................................................................................................. 21

Resource constraints persist ........................................................................................................................................ 22

Impact on revenue ........................................................................................................................................................... 23

Planning for the next year ........................................................................................................................................................................ 26 Operational integration ................................................................................................................................................... 26

Team expansion ................................................................................................................................................................. 26

Personalisation ................................................................................................................................................................... 27

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 29Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30

4 Airline Social Media Outlook 2018

Hybrid (43%) and dedicated (39%) social media team structures continue to be the most popular. This year hybrid structures have made a comeback likely due to their lower costs and better integration with the rest of the airline’s structure.

Customer service was indicated as top priority by 43% of respondents and remains the top goal driven via social media. The constant increase in customer service focus is a re-sponse to user demand for faster and more efficient interactions that have the ultimate goal of improving the airline’s brand image.

Crisis communications was the most common new responsibility added to social media teams (31%) coming to the fore after a challenging year. The focus on customer service as a way to improve brand image and match user demand has brought a renewed emphasis on social-media-led crisis management. This is especially true after a year filled with scandals and major operational issues.

Operational challenges and resource constraints remain, with most airlines allocating less than 10% of the marketing budget to social. Despite an increase in social media budgets, money remains the key constraint and there appears to be some mis-alignment between stated priorities and the allocation of budget.

Social media metrics and data analytics remain underdeveloped with 33% of respon-dents highlighting the need for data specialists and another 31% the need for tools and software. Airlines have started measuring and gathering data from social media but it ap-pears that the data is not yet being put to good use and sometimes the metrics being moni-tored are not the ideal ones.

2. Key findings for 2017/18 »


3. Team Structures

Last year’s survey indicated that not only did most airlines prefer a dedicated social media team, but even those working with other structures desired a dedicated team. To an extent, this trend continues this year as well. However, while dedicated teams are still the most desirable, hybrid teams have emerged as a viable alternative.

3.1. Understanding the hybrid structure

While it can have multiple permutations, a hybrid team usually involves a dedicated social media team supported by some employees in other departments and/or an external agency. This allows a dedicated social media team to remain small and nimble, while leveraging resources from the larger organisation as needed.

Interestingly, the proportion of airlines relying solely on agencies dropped significantly this year to only 4%. (Going forward, only 2% wish to have external agencies handle everything.) Given the increasing importance of social media, airlines now recognise the need to have greater control over their social media strategy. As a result, external agencies are playing less of a role.

Key Findings– Hybrid (43%) and dedicated (39%) social media team structures are the most popular

– However, continuing on a trend established last year — and contrary to the ground reality — a dedicated team structure is the most desired

– External teams / agencies are, in general, are the most expensive to invest in


3.2. Dedicated vs Hybrid?

It’s worth noting that the battle between dedicated and hybrid teams as the team structure of choice is far from over. In fact, the drop in desirability of a dedicated team, combined with a significant interest in a hybrid team indicates that the hybrid structure is likely to be popular in the short-term.

This can be partially explained by the fact that a dedicated team structure is the most resource intensive. Hence, it takes time to build a consensus to dedicate additional budget and manpower. Till then, an airline relies on a hybrid structure. Moreover, most airlines find that working with agencies to execute their tactical plan leaves the in-house team the flexibility to optimise the high-level strategy and focus on results.

S I M P L I F LY I N G T A K E

VOLARIS RE-THINKS HOW SOCIAL MEDIA TEAMS WORK TO DRIVE RESULTS

Volaris is one of the most profitable and agile airlines in the world, but it is also, an airline on a tight budget. This is because its success lies in its Ultra Low-Cost strategy combined with a very open and active company culture makes it a powerful force in its region.

Its culture is the engine of the company, that drives employees and makes small everyday miracles possible. Its budget control is what makes it profitable and what drives many organisational decisions and creates the need for the above-mentioned miracles.

As part of its cost-focus, the airline outsourced many labour-intensive areas of its business and transformed from a hybrid to a ULCC. This led to lower fares and more customers but as the airline continued to grow its leadership realized that something needed to be done to improve the airline’s social side.

Part of the challenge was that the airline flew a large number of infrequent or first-time fliers that were not very familiar with its ULCC model. Another part was that while the externalised function had grown following the airline’s expansion, the internal structure and organization had not changed much.

After working with SimpliFlying, the airline immediately set about implementing the roadmap that had been produced following our analysis. Within months change was already evident. The changes suggested drove it to add structure and planning to its social media side and create stronger communication and monitoring systems.

These, in turn, allowed it to better manage its external resources making them more efficient and helping the airline to move forward. The key learning for other airlines is that perhaps they will never be able to copy its corporate culture but they can dramatically change the efficiency of an outsourced team by pairing it with a solid and well structured internal team. Externalization on its own will not do.


3.3. Team sizes continue to grow

The number of social media staff employed by airlines has increased over the last year. This is a continuing trend that should surprise no one. In fact, the scope for expansion of social media teams at airlines is significant, and in the medium-term, we expect more people to be hired. However, in the short-term, the general trend indicates that teams will expand slowly.

Consider this: since last year, the number of airlines employing 5-25 full-time social media staff have has seen an overall increase of 10%. Despite this development, a greater proportion of airlines have fewer than 5 full-time employees working on social media.

This is a cause for concern. Nearly three quarters of the respondents feel that there is a further need to bolster their social media staff numbers to realise their team’s full potential on social media. The mismatch between resource needs and the hiring rate indicates a pressing need to win top management support, and to build a sustainable social media roadmap fully cognizant of resource and budget constraints.


3.4. External agencies most expensive way to do social media

The survey data also suggests that hiring external teams or agencies tends to be more expensive than having dedicated, distributed, or hybrid teams. Of those airlines that work with agencies, a large majority dedicate 10-25% of their marketing budget to social media.

In comparison, dedicated, distributed, and hybrid teams all tend to work with a much lower percentage of the marketing budget, on average.

Distributed teams often work with the lowest budget — almost all such teams work with less than 10% of the marketing budget — indicating that they are either resource-constrained, or social media is not yet a core function at the airline.

A more efficient way to allocate budget is starting with a small, dedicated team. This could be complemented by people from other departments to achieve a hybrid structure. As the airline starts driving better results from social media, the dedicated team can ultimately lead social media fully.


3.5. Social media increasingly housed in marketing and customer service departments

There is a growing consensus among airlines that the social media function is more than just corporate communications. In fact, growing evidence in recent years suggests that marketing and customer service have become the primary functions of social media teams. This is borne out by the survey data as well. At a majority of airlines (62%), social media is handled by the marketing or customer service team.

For the first time in years, it looks like airlines are at peace with where social media is housed. There is a growing congruence between the status quo and the desired state.

Interestingly, a small number of respondents believe that social media should be a department in itself. As the world becomes ever more digitally connected, it would be interesting to see whether this comes to fruition in the medium-term. After all, in a seamlessly connected world, it might make sense for all departments to fall under the social media umbrella.


4. Strategic Focus

4.1. Social media gains importance in the C-suite

For a majority of airlines now, the shift to a social-first airline is already a work in progress. While many airlines may not be at the cutting edge yet, most have recognised the value a holistic social media strategy brings to the brand. In that respect, social is no longer a luxury or a gimmick. It is a necessity precipitated by the rapid shift of customers to always-on commu-nications, better connectivity, and the acceptance of social media networks as a part of our daily lives.

It is heartening, therefore, that unlike previous years, the push to a social-centric airline brand isn’t merely coming from the lower levels of management who understand the new realities of customer behaviour. Instead, top level management is now firmly on board with the idea that social is — and will remain — an indispensable aspect of the airline brand in the medium-term.

In order to pursue a holistic roadmap in the coming year, senior executives must pay heed to two criti-cal factors. On the input side, they must ensure that resource and budget constraints are managed ad-equately. On the output side, they must emphasise the need for social engagement to be aligned with top-level strategy. For instance, it is no longer enough to merely respond or engage with customers online. Most customers expect brands to resolve their queries and complaints on social media.

While aligning these goals, the senior management must ensure that the executives who manage the fine details of the strategy, are also tuned into the real-time feedback on products and services received from customers.

Why do airline executives see social media as being important?

“Most of people use social media everyday. Social media is the main channel to connect with people” General Manager, China Airlines

“ For customers, it is more convenient to communicate through social media” Executive Chief DGO, Saudia

“The brand is extremely conscious to the need and behavior of the consumer” VP - Marketing, eCommerce & Innovation, Jet Airways


4.2. Social customer service more important than branding

Social customer service is no longer a buzzword being bandied around by clickbait hungry marketing journals or software vendors. Airlines are actively investing in it, and are conscious of the need to provide customer service across multiple social channels.

In our survey last year, social customer service reached a tipping point, overtaking branding as the top busi-ness goal for the first time. This trend has continued this year, indicating that it wasn’t a fleeting fascination — airlines are beginning to discover real value in delivering real-time customer service.

Fewer airlines now consider branding as a top priority, and for the second year in a row it continues to play a distant second fiddle to customer service.

Corresponding with the above trend, a significant chunk of airlines’ increased social media manpower is being dedicated to customer service. Nearly 42% of the surveyed airline professionals dedicate more than five social media staff for customer service.

There are, in fact, numerous case studies of airlines across various regions of the world setting up Social Media Command Centres (SMCCs) to monitor and respond to conversations online. From KLM to American Airlines to Cebu Pacific (the latest entrant to the club), airlines are investing in both resources and software to enable them to efficiently handle inbound conversations online.

Chart 4.1 : If customer service is one of the top priorities, are resources or budgets being shifted from call centre customer service to social media customer service?

0% 5%

100 20 30 40 50 60

10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

26%

44%

30%No

Yes

Not yet but it will


4.3. Crisis communications gains focus as a new priority

It’s unsurprising then, that airlines are gradually waking up to this new reality. In addition to customer service, social media efforts are increasingly aimed at addressing crisis communications. About 31% of the respondents shared that crisis communications was a new responsibility added over the last year.

It is no accident that, for half the respondents, crisis communications and social customer service were the new responsibilities added in the last year. The focus on crisis communications, especially is heartening and timely. It is not only a significant upshift from last year, but an emphatic statement that social media now leads the response to crises.

While preparing a crisis communications plan, airlines need to understand the following key realities of so-cial media:

Early identification of a crisis is critical.

Crises on social media do not necessarily involve operational problems or accidents (i.e. product).

Very often, a crisis is likely to break out based on how people are treated online or offline (i.e. service).

Most of the times, you’re likely to hear about an operational problem on social media than from the Operations team. Ensure the two teams are integrated.

Crises on social media cannot be controlled with an ad hoc plan. Proper processes are required in advance.


5. Budgets

Predictably, investments are rising in the social media function thanks to an aligning of favourable conditions — C-level support, increased understanding of the role of social media in modern communications, and necessity for customer service and crisis communications.

As a result, every year an increasingly larger percentage of the marketing budget is allocated to social media. While about a third invest between 10-25%, only a handful invest more than 25% of their marketing budget on social media.

Despite the growing role that social media is assuming, it’s a major concern that budgets remain restricted, mostly to under 10% of the marketing budget.

Chart 5.1 : If you had to chose only one of the following to dedicate all additional budget to, what should it be?

10 1550 20 25 30 35

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

10%

18%

21%

32%Team expansion

Acquisition of new tools

Training and social media awareness for C-level management

Better training for the social team


Chart 5.2 : What do you find most potential in for social media and wish to invest in ?

10 1550 20 25 30 35 40

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

20%

7%

8%

33%

32%Customer service

Driving online bookings

Building loyalty

Company branding

Promotiing destinations

In line with expectations, airlines would like to invest more in customer service and driving loyalty. However, quite surprisingly, airlines also expect they can drive online bookings if there’s more in-vestment. This is at odds with how most have used social media over the past year. It is unclear how greater investment will let them drive more bookings since revenue-generating initiatives — unlike customer service — are not resource intensive. (See Key Challenges section.)

Despite growing concerns from the C-Suite about social media’s contribution to the bottom line, social media will continue seeing a budget increase — thanks to its stellar credentials in delivering superior customer service and crisis communications.

However, most of this budgetary increase will be channelled into advertising. This is fascinating in the context of what we hear from airline executives, and at odds with strategic priorities. While they believe that customer service is the most useful way to utilise social media, increasing budgets will still go to advertising, which contributes to branding and sales. This mismatch may affect the returns compared to the expectations.

Moreover, one third of the respondents stated that if they could, they would choose to dedicate all the additional budget to team expansion. This is a big jump from the 17% of respondents who believed so last year. It is also at odds with where the likely increase of the budget will go next year.

Clearly, while senior management is coming on board with social media, it appears that top-level strategic priorities are neither well-defined nor aligned within airlines. This will continue to affect airline performance on social media in the short-term and, consequently, create a divergence between top and middle management in how they view the utility of social media.



6. Measurement

6.1. Use of social media metrics and data analytics is fragmented

In this year’s survey, we dug deep into how airlines use data and metrics from social media. Continuing the trend from last year, a large chunk (33%) of the respondents use their social media data for customer service or support. A similar percentage use the data to gain customer insights. This is in keeping with the general push towards offering customer service on social media platforms.

However, it’s unclear how the collected data for customer service and customer insights is being used. Ultimately, the point of collecting data should be to put it into use in a beneficial manner. However, that doesn’t seem to the case. Even if we ignore the significant number (5%) who do not use data at all (in 2017!), we realise that the loop is probably not being closed.

First, if customer service data is being collected and being put into action, it should immediately translate into better internal performance management for the team. However, that’s not reflected in this data set.

Second, if customer insights are being gained from the data collected, these should translate into product or service benefits. Again, this is not reflected in the responses to the survey.

Right now, we seem to be at a stage where airlines are cognizant of the need to collect data, and the opportunity it presents to them, but rather uncertain of how to put this data to use. This hypothesis is actually borne out by the next survey question. It proves that airlines need more help with the data they are collecting.

Chart 6.1 : Respondents engaged in customer service who desire bigger teams

Customer insights or segmentation

We don’t use it for anything yet

Customer service/support

New product strat-egies

Budgeting

30%

33%

18%

11%

5%

2%

Internal performance management


Nearly 32% of the respondents need data specialists to make better use of social media data. Nearly another third of the sample express a need for better software and tools. Training and monetary investment also featured as constraints to making better use of social media data.

Data is a huge blessing of the digital age. It is also a curse if one does not know how to put it to use. For airlines, it is critical that they combine skills, training, and software to ensure that the data they collect is put to the best use possible. Otherwise, data ceases to be meaningful and remains just a word.

Customer Service Metrics

Average reply time, average resolution time and resolution rate are still the popular metrics for measuring impact of social media on customer service, but there has been a big jump in the number of respondents using them in the survey sample this year. Average reply time is still the most popular, 38% of the respondents using it this year, up from 25% last year.

This is increasingly a concern from a strategic viewpoint. First, in the rush to respond quickly, airlines mustn’t forget that resolution is the true measure of customer service success. Second, teams must be pressed on the right metrics. It is quite futile to insist on a quicker response time if the resolution rate and resolution time constantly play second fiddle to reply time.

Ultimately, customer perception is shaped by how quickly a problem is resolved — not by the enthusiasm or quickness of the first response. The chasm between the two needs to be bridged over the next year.

Brand Awareness Metrics

The focus on reply time instead of resolution rate also skews brand awareness metrics in an inadvis-able direction. While a non-negligible proportion (7%) do not even measure it yet, the real concern is that about half of the respondents still depend on old-fashioned customer surveys to measure brand awareness.

Chart 6.2 : What do you need most to make better use of your social media data?

10 1550 20 25 30 35

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

19%

32%

20

0%

31%

17%More monetary investment

Better software/tools

Better training

Data specialist team member(s)

Others



This needs to stop. Not only are customer surveys largely inaccurate and dependent on customer mood, inclination, time etc, they can often paint a false picture of brand health.

It’s also alarming that the proportion of respondents using engagement rate (22%) and click through rate (4%) has fallen in favour of fan growth rate (12%), compared to last year. Given how easily fans can be bought and added to social pages, this is a matter of grave concern.

In times when multiple, highly sophisticated tools on the market can effectively measure the impact of social media on brands — including owned, earned, and paid efforts — it is a shame that airlines continue to plod on the same old path. It is time airlines wake up to the reality of social media and invest in a top-level strategy that’s backed by trained agents and adequate tools.

There has also been a shift towards not directly measuring the impact of social media on revenue. A whopping 26% of the respondents admitted not measuring the impact of social media on revenue at all this year. This probably highlights that social media efforts yield indirect benefits for the bottom line rather than direct ones. The direct tangible benefits are visible in areas of customer service and branding, which eventually strengthen revenue and sustain it.

However, it might be equally true that marketing efforts on social media aren’t being tied to revenue objectives. Airlines need to think harder, or at least split campaigns into non-revenue generating and revenue-generating ones. This will ensure simpler revenue attribution. As a result, senior manage-ment will have a stronger rationale to allocate more resources and budgets to social media.

Chart 6.3 : What KPIs do you use for measuring impact of social media on Brand Awareness?

20 30100 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

3%

12%

49%

7%

2%

4%

22%Engagement rate

Click-through rate

Percentage of issues solved

Custormer surveys

Other

Fan growth rate

We currently don’t measure it yet



CEBU PACIFIC TRANSFORMS SOCIAL CARE

Cebu Pacific is a great example of an airline that listened to the demands of its customers and transformed its social customer service efforts. The airline has a unique, open and dynamic culture that helped fuel a fast growth that made it the largest carrier in the Philippines and one of the best LCCs in Asia.

The challenge for them was that while the airline expanded so did the expectations of passengers for an increased level of customer service, especially on social media. This created a problem because the customer care structure that works well for a small airline typically doesn’t scale well and causes unnecessary complications.

Recognizing the increased demand from travellers the airline reached out to SimpliFlying to help with customer service strategy. Following a detailed assessment process and several trips by our consultants we delivered a roadmap for the re-organization and proceeded to guide the airline in hiring and training new staff members.

Within 6 months of the project being completed the airline had 20 new customer service staff trained to the highest industry levels, was able to provide 24/7 service and had improved its response speed by 6.7 times.

As we write the airline has opened the first social media command centre in Asia leading the way in social customer service organization and infrastructure in its region.


7. Key Challenges

7.1. C-Suite concerns regarding ROI of social media

While those working with social media indicate they need greater investment and more resources, senior management concerns regarding additional investments and return on investment persist. According to 64% of the respondents, the primary concern of airline executives is how social media can contribute to the company in dollar terms.

Given that driving online bookings is not a priority for airline social media teams, a significant contribution to top line growth cannot be an argument for the C-Suite. Instead, focussing on the bottom line would help build a better business case for social media in the C-Suite.


7.2. Resource constraints persist

Almost 60% of the respondents felt that insufficient allocation of resources is going to be the biggest challenge going into 2018. Though, the silver lining is that a healthy three quarters show optimism that they will overcome their top challenges this year.


7.3. Impact on revenue

One of the key challenges to grapple with over the next year is social media’s inadequacy at driving revenues. While, expectedly, there is significant support for using social media for customer service and branding — right in line with what we’ve learnt so far in the survey — there is almost none for driving online bookings.

Chart 7.1 : Which one of the following aspects do you find social media most useful for?

10 1550 20 25 30 35

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

29%

17%

30%

14%

10%

Building loyalty

Company branding

Customer service

Promoting destinations



Chart 7.2 : Which one of the following aspects do you find social media least useful for?

20 30100 40 50 60

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

22%

17%

8%

47%

5%

Promoting new aircrafts

Promoting destinations


Building loyalty

Customer service

In fact, whichever end of the stick one holds, driving online bookings via social media appears to be the least useful for airlines. However, C-level concerns regarding social media’s dollar-value contribution is unlikely to vanish over the next year.

This means that airlines can adopt one or all of the following strategies to get C-level buy-in:

1. Put dollar values to savings effected by social customer service

2. Put dollar values to earned media and impact on the company’s brand

3. Tie some of their marketing campaigns on social media more closely to revenue-specific objectives

While social media has been seen till now as a tool for building relationships with customers and potential customers, it needs to move to the next level in the coming year. Hard measurements will also enable airlines to gauge the success of their strategies. (One must also recall that despite the prevailing pessimism, airlines do see the potential in social media to drive bookings if there’s more investment in it — See Budgets section.)

It is a significant result that almost half the respondents agree that social media is quite inept at helping airlines promote new aircraft.



SOCIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE: MEASURING THE REAL BENEFITS

Our work experience shows that moving customer service from the call center to social media has a four to six fold savings in time and costs. It is also worth noting once again that airlines are increasingly shifting more resources toward customer service as well. This is just as well, because social customer service brings real benefits to those investing in it. According to reports online, social customer service:

1. Reduces Customer Service Costs

The Harvard Business Review found that social care transactions only cost around $1 each, whereas legacy customer service centres using phone and email can cost over $6 per interaction.

2. Reduces Marketing Costs

According to a Forbes report, when customers have positive interactions with social care agents, they are 3 times more likely to recommend that brand to a friend, boosting word-of-mouth buzz and referral sales. This type of organic messaging is hugely valuable to a marketing team, and can reduce the need for costly ad campaigns and digital efforts.

3. Reduces Customer Acquisition Costs

It can be up to 25 times cheaper to retain a customer than acquire a new one. Forrester reported that social care can increase customer retention rates by 58%, driving down your need for new acquisitions and padding your customer funnel.

4. Increases effectivity

A recent Conversocial study has shown almost a 167% increase in agent effectiveness. In fact, during studies, agents could handle as many as 15,000 customers over the period of the study as opposed to 5,610 handled by agents using legacy channels.

This is unsurprising. Not too many passengers — except aviation geeks — are clued in to the type of plane they fly. It’s arguable that many don’t even know, or care about, the difference between Boeing and Airbus aircraft. In such a scenario, promoting a new aircraft for a general audience is unlikely to garner excitement. (The excitement around flying the A380 and 787 is long in the past now.)

The question one often needs to ask in such instances is not whether there’s something wrong with the aircraft promotion strategy, but whether aircraft promotion should be a significant marketing activity anyway.

At all times, the question should not be “what makes you feel good about the brand”, but “what makes the customer feel good about the brand”.


8. Planning for the next year

8.1. Operational integration

For the second year running, integration with operations has been identified by airlines as the most desirable strategic goal worth pursuing. This is unsurprising, especially for airlines pursuing a holistic social media strategy. Both departments stand to gain from significant synergies through sharing of real-time data.

At airlines where the Operations and Social Media departments are integrated tightly — such as in American Airlines — the flow of information in two directions has actually helped both departments. Operations can often identify potential issues thanks to real-time social media input by customers; on the other hand, social media teams can tailor quick responses to emerging situations based on authentic information received from operations.

In fact, the major objective of setting up a Social Media Command Centre (SMCC), as mentioned earlier, is to ensure the smooth flow of information both within the company, between departments such as Operations and Social Media, as well as outbound responses based on customer needs.

8.2. Team expansion

However, setting up such teams requires a greater investment in operational resources as well. Predictably, recruiting more resources into the social media team is the second most important strategic priority for airlines.

Moreover, if we add in the demand for better tools into the equation, we realise the three crucial ingredients for setting up an SMCC — tools, resources, and integration with operations. These, together, make up nearly 80% of the responses. However, the fragmentation between them indicates

Chart 8.1 : Which of the following will be your top strategic priority going into the future?

10 1550 20 25 30 35 40

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

31%

20%

0

27%

12%

10%

Restructure my team

Other

Drive more resources into my social media department

Align social media better with operations

Get better technology tools

Better training to social media


airlines at different stages of their social media life cycles, even as social media itself becomes a core function.

Interestingly, significantly fewer respondents compared to last year seek training for social media. This could be a result of maturing skill sets and social media becoming a mainstream or even specialised role.

8.3. Personalisation – Powered by Relay42

Apart from integration with operations, a major emerging trend for the next year, however, is the increased interest in personalisation for customers in two significant ways. First, in the growing interest in chatbots which are being deployed for repetitive tasks that do not require significant human interaction e.g. booking and travel advice. These can be de-ployed at scale while ensuring that each customer’s request is met with relevant personalisation.

Second, in the digital era one-to-one personalisation across channels is rising on the priority list. Airlines are beginning to tap into social media as a valuable source of customer information and also an important channel to convert sales. Based on historical interac-tions, customer behaviour, requests, travel patterns etc., airlines can easily build a customer dashboard that lets them tailor interactions and offers for custom-ers by social channel. The next frontier will be moving forward with this data, uncovering insights, and then putting them into action across the relevant context. The challenge is to accurately identify the custom-er, and not only being able to analyse across social media channels and beyond, but combine all touch-points, to deliver a relevant offer in real-time .

The Relay42 enterprise Data Management Platform (DMP) empowers brands to turn their marketing into human dialogue. By unifying every consumer channel and platform quickly, marketers can plug and play, personalising every piece of outreach for the right message, to the right person, in the right context. As an award-winning hub for world-class brands, Relay42 helps global travel brands such as KLM, Air France, Thomas Cook & Transavia to make their vision of one-to-one marketing a reality - and deliver real results.

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Interestingly, airlines appear to have lost interest in virtual and augmented reality — at least for the present. On the surface, this appears to be a disen-chantment with gimmicky technologies that offer limited use cases and significant monetary invest-ment. However, lessons from the ill-fated Google Glass indicate that this is potentially also due to the lack of widespread, day-to-day usability of suc technologies. While virtual reality requires at least some form of a headset, augmented reality can potentially work on just a smartphone. But the latter has seen little success beyond Pokemon Go. The next year, however, is likely to be a tipping point as Apple makes a significant push in the augmented reality arena by promoting its AR Kit. In this respect, airlines need to retain an agile culture of adoption and experimentation if they are to try these new custom-er-facing technologies - but also on the infrastructure side, to ensure their best-of-breed Marketecture can accommodate new entrants fast, with ease and flexibility.

As expected, however, airlines are struggling to use data to improve customer experiences, and face significant challenges. These challenges are almost equally distributed among four key challenges: achieving a comprehensive single customer profile; connecting online social data with offline databas-es; real-time activation of data across channels; and innovating quickly enough to keep up with customers. Airlines must use the right customer journey orches-tration solution to Identify the customer, gathering all relevant information to display a customised message in the right context, at the right time.

Ultimately, overcoming these challenges will be key in determining whether airlines can deliver effective personalised experiences to their customers in the coming years.

Click here to read the full eBook on how a global airline used an agile approach and technology to deliver one-to-one customer journeys, at scale.

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9. Conclusion

A social media strategy is no longer a luxury for airline marketing departments. It is an urgent necessity that has the potential to deliver multiple benefits, while ensuring that today’s connected travellers can interact with the airline on their preferred channel.

It is unsurprising, then, that at many airlines social media is already a mainstream function with significant senior management support. Moreover, executives have recognised the distinct nature of social media practices from traditional textbook-oriented marketing or corporate communications. Traditional practices have been turned on their head. Customer service on social media is now paramount.

The future lies in ensuring that airlines can use social media data and convert them into actionable insights that will yield closer relationships with customers through greater personalisation. However, before this can be achieved, airlines require significant investment in resources and specialised training.


AppendixList of participating airlines

A1. Aerolineas Argentinas2. Aer Lingus3. Air Algerie4. Air Arabia5. Air Astana6. Air Botswana7. Air Canada8. Air Costa9. Air France10. Air India11. Air Malta12. Air Mauritius13. Air New Zealand14. Air North, Yukon’s Airline15. Air Nostrum LAM16. Air Prishtina17. Air Serbia18. Air Seychelles19. Air Swift20. Air Transat21. Air Vanuatu22. AirAsia23. airberlin24. Alitalia25. ANA26. Avianca

B27. Blue Air28. Brussels Airlines29. Bulgaria Air

C30. Cameroon Airline Corporation31. Canadian Orient Airlines32. Caribbean Airlines33. Cathay Pacific34. Cebu Pacific Airways35. Condor Flugdienst36. Copa Airlines37. Air Costa38. Croatia Airlines

D39. Dalmatian

E40. Emirates41. Etihad Airways

75. Surinam Airways

T76. TAP Portugal77. TAR Aerolineas78. TAROM79. Thai Airways80. Thai Smile Airways81. Transavia82. Tyrol Air Ambulance83. TUIfly

U84. United Airlines

V85. Vueling86. Virgin Atlantic87. Vistara

W88. WestJet

I42. Iberia43. Icelandair44. IndiGo

J45. Japan Airlines.46. Jazeera Airways47. Jet Airways48. Jetstar Airways

K49. Kingfisher Airlines50. Korean Air

L51. LATAM

M52. Mahan Air53. Malaysia Airlines54. Malindo Air55. Maya Island Air56. Medavia57. Meridiana58. MIAT-Mongolian Airlines

N59. Nile Air60. Norwegian Air Shuttle

O61. Oman Air

P62. Pegasus & Co.63. Philippines airlines64. Porter Airlines

Q65. Qantas66. Qatar Airways

R67. Regional Air Services68. Royal Brunei Airlines

S69. Sabre70. Sata - Azores Airlines71. SAUDIA72. Singapore Airlines73. South African Airways74. Srilankan Airlines


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