Airlines not alone in poor customer service studies

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The Airline Quality Rating report was released last week, exposing the five worst airlines in the United States. It’s fun to beat up on the airlines … as it is to beat up on other companies and industries notorious for poor customer service. So, this made me wonder just how the airlines stack up against everyone else.

Back in August, the American Customer Satisfaction Index rated hundreds of companies and came out with the results. Some airlines are in there, of course, but they aren’t alone. I took a look at the bottom of the barrel – 18 companies featured by Business Insider – and saw that the airlines were well-represented but far from dominant.

Telecommunications companies led the pack, accounting for a third of the list, with airlines next – four companies accounting for 22 percent. Banking followed with 17 percent. Strangely, social networking contributed two companies, with both Facebook and MySpace getting poor marks for customer service. Insurance, restaurants and utilities each contributed a company.

The airlines that got the nod will look pretty familiar: in fact, they’re four of the five identified in the Airline Quality Rating report. American Airlines took the #12 spot, immediately behind Facebook and MySapce. Delta and US Airways took the next two positions, with United Airlines at #17.

The worst company for customer service was AT&T Mobility, with DirecTV and Citibank behind it.

Free Montreal travel in three simple steps

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Do you like Montreal? I have to admit, I’ve been there three times in the past two years, and I just can’t get enough of it. The minute I hit the streets of Old Montreal, I find myself craving a hotdog at the St-Denis Pool Hall before dashing over to the art galleries on St-Paul Ouest. Even with winter approaching rapidly, I’m feeling the pull up north.

So, I was pretty excited by a cool contest that just hit the web from CheapOair, and the social media junkie in me was drawn in. The upside is pretty exciting: two roundtrip tickets to Montreal from Air Canada, two luxurious nights at the Montreal Marriott Chateau and tickets to a variety of local attractions around the city from Tourism Montreal.

If you win, I strongly suggest you go hang out with local foodie Katerine Rollet for a while. Ask her about the local hotdogs, and she’ll probably know I put you up to it.

So, how do score this getaway? Well, you have to click around to three sites … and maybe do a little typing. There are three simple steps:

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1. Head over to Facebook – assuming you’re already one of the 500 million users of the site. “Like” the Montreal Buzz page.

2. While you’re in Facebook, click over to CheapOair’s page and “like” that, too.

3. Finally, you’ll have to leave Facebook (don’t worry, you can – and probably will – wind up back there at some point during the day). Visit the Tourism Montreal blog and leave a comment telling everyone why you want to head up there. You won’t get extra points for mentioning the hotdogs in town, but I haven’t heard that doing so will hurt.

The contest kicks off November 1, 2010 and ends on November 5, 2010. The winner will be announced on November 8, 2010. Fortunately, you won’t have to wait long to see if you’ll get to hit the road.

Click here to see what else there is to do in Montreal!

Travel and social media: five ways to cut through it all

by Tom Johansmeyer on

As I was scanning the headlines this morning, I came across Christopher Elliott’s article, “Are travelers overloaded by social media?” It’s a fair question. Not only are more and more of us plugging in – Twitter, for example, is adding 1.8 million new users a week – but we’re being increasingly being bombarded “communicated to” by hotels and airlines that are eager to get a bigger share of our wallets. So, there’s a whole lot of status updating and tweeting going on, and we need to figure out how to deal with it all.

It’s easy to blame the marketing guys for this. Aren’t they the people responsible, clogging our Facebook news feeds and Twitter timelines with hot deals and other promotional content? Well, yes … but we want some of that. That’s why I follow, for example, people like @Bsimi and @Colonnade, not to mention @JetBlue.

So, we have to balance our desire for promotional content (and let’s be honest – we do desire it) with keeping our social media environments clean and decidedly our own. Here are five ways you can get what you want without giving up too much:1. Make loyalty choices: with all the content floating around, you need to trim down the number of travel businesses you follow in order to truly take advantage of the best deals. Otherwise, you risk not seeing what you really want. Decide which brands mean the most to you, and ditch the others.

2. Make travel brands earn your social media share: for me at least, it takes more than a few hot deals to get me to follow a brand on Twitter or like it on Facebook. I want interesting content and customer service, too. I may test out a social media relationship for a while, but to make it stick, the company is going to have to perform.

3. Watch your friends: if you see a brand retweeted or otherwise interacting with one of your friends, it may be worth following it – or at least asking your friend why. This is why I follow @FSHotelHouston (Four Seasons Hotel Houston), for example, which was based on Twitter action I saw from @welshwonder.

4. “Favorite” and “like” what matters: use these features to bookmark social media content that you may want to use later. It will keep great deals from getting lost in your active social media stream.

5. Use these relationships effectively: By trimming your list down, you are effectively making a statement about customer loyalty – make sure the people managing those accounts know that! Don’t do it just for perks. Instead, develop a real relationship with the person behind the brand.

Top five social media destinations

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Do you live your life in 140 characters are less? Have you almost lost your life several times because you had to get that shot of a crazy cab driver uploaded to Facebook? If this is anything like you, here are five cities you’re just going to love.

NetProspex has ranked the cities in the United States by social media activity, and the results are not at all surprising. Using the NetProspex Social Index (PDF), which the company developed, it was able to rank activity across a number of social media platforms, including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Here are the details on the methodology:

The data was mined from their database of business contacts. There are three components to the score. First there is social connectedness: the number of employees with at least one social media profile. Second there is social friendliness and reach: the average number of connections per employee across major social networks. Third is social activity: the average number of tweets, number of followers, and number of users following.

So, who wins? Take a look below:
1. San Francisco: home of Twitter and long-time tech city, is this really surprising?

2. San Jose: okay, like San Francisco but not as cool … pretty easy to see this one coming

3. New York: 8 million people with nothing better to do and plenty to TwitPic

4. Austin: who knew the country’s sexiest city would also be one of its most socially connected? Hot people flock together and like to stay in touch

5. Boston: another tech center, especially the metro area, and there really is nothing better to do up there …

[Thanks @zimmermitch, photo by Laurie DePrete]

Traveling women are Facebook addicts

by Tom Johansmeyer on

A new study of female travelers indicates that close to half can’t let go of Facebook when they’re on the road. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the social network of choice for women on the go.

Ninety-three percent of women who have had an overnight trip in the past month, according to Women on Their Way, have Facebook accounts, and 68 percent of them use it for travel purposes. What do they like to do most? Share multimedia! Fifty-seven percent engage in that activity. Status updates and commentary about the trip are next (38 percent), followed by Facebook Places check-ins (13 percent).

While these activities can happen before or after the trip has come to a close, 46 percent of respondents said they use Facebook while actually traveling, and 77 percent connect to the social media platform via a laptop.

So, if you see some hottie in the hotel bar and want to know if she’s interested in doing something regrettable … well, it helps to be “friends” first.


[photo by Andrew Feinberg via Flickr]