Enterprise needs be more "Social" than they are now!

Its been sometime since I blogged and I would love to share my experience. I generally dont like blogging about what should be and what shouldn't be, I prefer to jot down my experiences and share them with folks on Customer Support or ITIL. This time, its pure customer support and my experience with 2 really great brands. Well, 1st experience is purely mine and 2nd is from a colleague.

Let me start off with the events. 

In Oct, I was travelling to New Orleans to attend HDI Fusion event in American Airlines flight from SFO - > DFW -> NOLA. New Orleans has a pretty bad tryst with Mother Nature, most of the time, but I love the way, the city bounces back. This time too, there was a Tornado warning in and around the area and boy, I did feel the turbulence Mid-air on the flight. It was scary and some fear of crash (Especially after the Plane crash few weeks back. May there souls RIP). Now, we were told that we will be landing in Shreveport Regional Airport for an Aircraft maintenance and some folks (Whom I guess are very Frequent Fliers of AA) were complaining and even making cuss words about AA. Once we got down, I felt like tweeting to AA about this. I waited for 30 mins and started tweeting. I got an update that due to bad weather flight couldn't take off and Technical Crew was working on fixing the flight or something. Other folks who were talking to the Airport folks were getting frustrated for not getting any update. After 3 Hours, I again reached out to them on this long delay and was getting immediate responses, and I liked the way AA is using their Social Support team (https://twitter.com/vshankar90/status/660624217356959745)

One of the best part of the Conversation was, moment I went to the Front Desk to get accommodation, I was already booked on the next flight from Shreveport, got a room in the nearest Hotel for the night. Now, thats what I loved about the Customer Service. Now, I am not saying, this is the perfect way to support, but it helped me and I was satisfied. Thats what matters!!!. In ITIL terms, VALUE. Always focus on the value, the customer gets from the interaction. 

Now, this delay of continuous DM and sharing my details and all the info, if AA team had integrated their Social channel with Freshdesk and their CRM, this could have been more personal and even enjoyable experience. But anyone can learn from their mistakes and hope AA team starts using a better tool. Maybe Freshdesk ;-)

Now, the 2nd experience is not mine, but my colleague and good friend Alan Berkson, who works with me in Freshdesk, in NYC. He is an avid tweeter and he tweets his experiences, he instagrams his food. He is all over the social media. 

So, he joined me in New Orleans for the HDI Fusion event and he was supposed to stay at the Hyatt. Now, when he went to the reception, he got the news that his room was given to someone else. Now, how does that happen, when you have a solid reservation. To his frustration, they made him wait for a long time and Alan being a social bug, started tweeting and finally they gave him the presidential suite :D !!! Wow right.... Wrong... He had no water running!! Poor guy started tweeting again. Now I am not saying, what Hyatt did was right or wrong, but they were active on social media, but had they been using a Support tool like Freshdesk, they would have Alan's entire profile, his old tweets, his tickets, his Membership info, everything. 

After Alan's experience, I must share one of the most pathetic social media experiences by a company called Cathay Pacific.Oh yeah, another Airline, which says, they are on Social media but totally run by marketing people than Support teams. I had some bad experience and good ones but none of them were even acknowledged or liked by their team. I am not saying, you should respond to my rants but atleast say thanks to my nice comments. Cathay Pacific - Social Channel - Customer Service - TOTAL FAIL