Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Shout out to terrible Twitter use...

We've discussed a lot how to use, and how not to use Twitter, and this little customer service episode, brought to us by United Airlines, shows what a terrible job they're doing utilizing Twitter for their customer interactions and service. They've probably lost a frequent customer here, which could have easily been prevented.
I was also very surprised that this happened to an airline because we've already seen several cases of airlines using Twitter effectively and ineffectively - which should have been enough of a warning to prompt every airline to begin using Twitter seriously. Should have. But United Airlines has apparently missed the boat (or plane). I suggest they rethink their Twitter strategy and include responding to negative tweets as well as positive ones.

1 comment:

Jess Young said...

I stumbled up on this too and it reminded me of something I read last semester in Professor Steinhorn's class. It was an article that profiled about 6 social media people for bigger corporations like this and they were all very young people. It almost seems like this little "SNAFU" was handled by someone pretty junior who didn't want to bother with the accusations, but thought he or she would have a little "fun" in the meantime. Can't believe the follow-up tweet too - unreal!