Month: April 2010

Business using social media to connect with customers

Another article on businesses using social media  was published in The Dominion Post today (you should be able to click on the image below to read the whole thing in the Library Press Display viewer). Some interesting bits: 

  • Telecom’s Twitter account has been live for 2 years and now has more than 6000 followers – “it is not a controlled marketing stream” but features tweets from a team of technology enthusiasts. It has however been used to deal with customer queries during the XT outages
  • Telecom: “From a business point of view, there’s a brand benefit, better communication with customers”.
  • Pro-Twitter Telecom staffers did face cynicism from those in the company who “didn’t get it” – but they have had an “oops, sorry” response when the benefits of Twitter as a way to connect with customers became obvious
  • Air New Zealand sees social media as a “channel to gain valuable customer feedback and as a channel to share brand messages”
  • Air NZ have dedicated staff working on their social media accounts including @flyairnz and @airpointsfairy
  • Air NZ see the biggest benefit of social media as the speed of customer feedback. It will be a massive growth area in the next 2 years for them “especially in the way we do customer surveys and gather insights”

It appears that Air NZ at least isn’t nervous about making quick decisions about utilising social media and getting on with it – the @airpointsfairy account was “set up after an idea from the internal team that went live the same day”. Quick work! 

 

The Dominion Post
16 Apr 2010