These Airlines Are the Best at Responding to You on Twitter
Taking to social media has become the norm when trying to get an airline's attention. When a situation goes awry, flyers can try and deal with a customer service agent over the phone or in person, but with social media, customer complaints can be made public.
Going public can help put pressure on an airline to respond, since it knows people are actively watching the situation unfold. And in the post-United Bumpgate world, where a video can go viral and create a public-relations nightmare for an airline, companies are on their best behavior.
Conversocial Inc., a social media-focused customer service firm, released a study on airlines with the best response time on social media. Over the course of four days in October, Conversocial looked at the average response time by airlines on Twitter.
JetBlue took the top spot (among North American carriers) with Virgin America coming in right behind — both had an average response time of under 5 minutes. The three large legacy carriers took the bottom rung of the scores, with United taking over an hour and a half to respond. United's response time was an hour longer than the second worst, Delta which came in around 31 minutes.
In regards to the airlines in the Middle East and Europe (EMEA), Lufthansa took over 9 minutes to respond on Twitter, more than 5 minutes longer than the top North American carrier. If you think United's response time was rough, just take a look at Finnair, which took a whopping five and half hours.
Although American Airlines placed eighth, it actually responded the most out of any other North American airline — responding to almost a third of its Twitter mentions. And just because an airline responded quickly didn't mean they were actually responding to everyone, Lufthansa actually came in last when it came to overall response time.
In regards to response time, North American airlines handily beat their counterparts across the Atlantic, but the EMEA airlines were more responsive overall.
Conversocial's results somewhat matched TPG's findings in 2015, where JetBlue was the quickest to respond but Delta actually responded to the most customers overall. Similarly, United took nearly four hours to respond in 2015.
A United spokesperson told Bloomberg that it planned on increasing its social media staff by 150 percent in the first quarter of 2018.
Bloomberg writer Justin Bachman points out that just because an airline might respond quicker to a customer service issue doesn't mean that it actually gets resolved, although JetBlue and Alaska did score at the top of J.D. Power's most recent airline satisfaction study.
Feature photo by @mp_develops via Twenty20
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The Capital One Venture X Business Card has all the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has to offer and more. It offers an incredible welcome bonus and requires an equally impressive spend to qualify. In addition, the card comes with premium travel perks like annual travel credit. (Partner offer)Pros
- The Capital One Venture X business card has a very lucrative welcome offer.
- In addition, the card comes with many premium travel perks such as an annual $300 credit for bookings through Capital One Business Travel.
- Business owners are also able to add employee cards for free.
Cons
- The card requires significant spending to earn the welcome offer.
- Another drawback is that the annual travel credit can only be used on bookings made through Capital One Business Travel.
- LIMITED-TIME OFFER: Earn up to 400K bonus miles: 200K miles when you spend $30K in the first 3 months, and an additional 200k miles when you spend $150k in the first 6 months
- Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, everywhere—with no limits or category restrictions
- Earn 10X miles on hotels and rental cars and 5X miles on flights and vacation rentals booked through Capital One Business Travel
- With no preset spending limit, enjoy big purchasing power that adapts so you can spend more and earn more rewards
- Empower your teams to make business purchases while earning rewards on their transactions, with free employee and virtual cards. Plus, automatically sync your transaction data with your accounting software and pay your vendors with ease
- Redeem your miles on flights, hotels and more. Plus, transfer your miles to any of the 15+ travel loyalty programs
- Every year, you'll get 10,000 bonus miles after your account anniversary date. Plus, receive an annual $300 credit for bookings made through Capital One Business Travel
- Receive up to a $120 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck®. Enjoy access to 1,300+ airport lounges worldwide, including Capital One Lounge locations and Priority Pass™ lounges, after enrollment
- Enjoy a $100 experience credit and other premium benefits with every hotel and vacation rental booked from the Premier Collection
- This is a pay-in-full card, so your balance is due in full every month