Delta Airlines tracks the pulse of its customers, responds with Twitter

@DeltaAssist and the airline’s Twitter Watch program help meet customer needs in real time.

It’s this kind of customer service that earned Delta Airlines top honors in the Best Use of Twitter category in PR Daily’s Digital PR & Social Media Awards.

As the airline developed its social media strategy, it wanted to use the venue to provide “a real value—customer support.”

@DeltaAssist was the first airline program in the U.S. to use Twitter for customer support. When it started, four community managers provided support Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. EST, helping customers who sought answers to questions about things like flight status or gate numbers.

As team members listened to customers, they realized they could help customers even more by using the social media platform to solve problems.

The expanded team includes 12 empowered reservations agents serving customers 24/7, using a triage system to respond to tweets. They can do anything a call center employee can do, except book a new ticket. To add a personal touch, employees sign their tweets with their initial, and their first names are listed on the airline’s Twitter profile.

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