It came as a shocker to me, but almost instantly made so much sense! The thought struck me when I was preparing for a Social Media CRM and ORM workshop for one of our clients, and it looked like a masterstroke from the brand.
Lets go back a little bit in history. If you are a social media enthusiast, then you would have surely heard about United Airlines’ infamously famous Dave Carroll music video. Rough estimates suggest that the airline’s stock price dropped 10% after the video went viral, and it must have taken long for the company to do complete damage.
While things went a little too far in this case, brands world over are realising one important truth. Customers are fast taking to social media as the primary medium to vent their frustration, and a lot of them are likely to do this each time they are served a bad experience. The other end of the sword of social media is becoming sharper by the day, and consumers are in no mood to go soft with their prey.
Cut to Indigo in the present day. While I, and I am sure most people who’ve traveled the airline will agree that is the best in class Indian economy airline out there, things can go wrong with Indigo too. Inconvenienced passengers, loss of baggage, non availability of food and so much more. Now what if even a small percentage of the so many people flying Indigo were to start complaining on social media about their bad experiences. What would it do for the company. Would it not repel some other people from booking the flight? So Indigo found an innovative solution. It went anti social!
Here’s how. The next time you are about to board an Indigo, check out the message that they send.
Indigo doesn’t want you to vent your ire on social media, it wants you to send them an SMS instead! Looks so harmless, but look at the thought behind it. “We know you can get discomforted, and while we are doing our best to not let it happen, we want you to share your frustration through the right medium.” So simple, so effective, so good. We can’t predict how much loss of business they save thanks to this, but it is an excellent strategy to avert some potential crisis for sure. While the likes of Spicejet are prodding passengers to share their experiences on social media(which they later print in the in flight magazines), Indigo is trying to steer clear of social right when the chances of damage are maximum.
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Prateek shah is a Digital Marketing Trainer who blogs at www.prateekshah.com. He is a partner trainer with Google India | Digital Vidya | AIMA.