JetBlue offers a budget airline model providing discounted airfares while offering different sources of in-flight entertainment. JetBlue offers customers service by toll-free phone number and email support.
“JetBlue was a customer service company that just happened to fly airplanes,’’ Neeleman said in an interview, speaking publicly of his plans for the first time. “Moxy will take that a little bit further. It will be a technology company that just happens to fly airplanes.’’
Neeleman, the majority investor in the new venture, is looking to burnish his track record for successfully starting airlines in an industry littered with failures. He co-founded Morris Air in the U.S. before selling it to Southwest Airlines Co. He also started Canada’s WestJet Airlines Ltd. and Brazil’s Azul SA, and is in a partnership that holds a 45 percent stake in Portugal’s national airline, TAP.
Laurie's been at JetBlue for over eight years now and has spent the last two as Manager of Customer Commitment. I had the pleasure of sitting down with her last week to chat about JetBlue's uniquely dedicated approach to Twitter as a customer service outlet, rather than simply a social media marketing tool.
"We're all about people," she explained, "and being on social media is just a natural extension of that. It's no different than any other part of the airline."
Let me give you a taste of what she's talking about here. In January of this year, a man named Alex tweeted at JetBlue asking about their standby policy -- namely, why he would be charged $50 for getting on an earlier flight than the one he was ticketed for. Within three minutes, JetBlue had replied.
etBlue answered Alex's question -- and he wasn't even mad about it. At this point, most companies would pat themselves on the back and call it a job well done.
Half an hour later, Alex tweeted again -- this time about how amazed he was at the steps JetBlue had taken to provide him with an unexpectedly exceptional customer service experience.
The employees behind JetBlue's Twitter handle aren't just social media marketers. There are three teams that tweet from the @JetBlue account: the marketing team, the corporate communications team, and Laurie's team -- Customer Commitment. Her team is made up of seasoned customer service professionals who answer customer service tweets on Twitter instead of on the phone.
But JetBlue doesn't just respond to everything blindly. They prioritize responding to tweets where they'd be contributing value. "We recognize how important it is to measure the ROI of our social media efforts, but we actually make a point of not measuring response rate on Twitter," says Laurie.
In other words, employees don't feel pressured to hit a response goal by sending quick responses to every single tweet that comes in. "We want our employees to engage smartly, and for the conversations to be organic and natural. We look for opportunities to add value and connect with our customers, not just respond to every single mention that comes our way."
And with 2,500-2,600 Twitter mentions every day, you can bet JetBlue has people working hard to cover their social media accounts 24/7 and read every single tweet that comes in. And, impressively, they average a 10-minute response time. I tested this out myself before boarding my JetBlue flight last weekend. Sure enough, the Saturday night team responded in 10 minutes on the dot.
“JetBlue was a customer service company that just happened to fly airplanes,’’ Neeleman said in an interview, speaking publicly of his plans for the first time. “Moxy will take that a little bit further. It will be a technology company that just happens to fly airplanes.’’
Neeleman, the majority investor in the new venture, is looking to burnish his track record for successfully starting airlines in an industry littered with failures. He co-founded Morris Air in the U.S. before selling it to Southwest Airlines Co. He also started Canada’s WestJet Airlines Ltd. and Brazil’s Azul SA, and is in a partnership that holds a 45 percent stake in Portugal’s national airline, TAP.
Laurie's been at JetBlue for over eight years now and has spent the last two as Manager of Customer Commitment. I had the pleasure of sitting down with her last week to chat about JetBlue's uniquely dedicated approach to Twitter as a customer service outlet, rather than simply a social media marketing tool.
"We're all about people," she explained, "and being on social media is just a natural extension of that. It's no different than any other part of the airline."
Let me give you a taste of what she's talking about here. In January of this year, a man named Alex tweeted at JetBlue asking about their standby policy -- namely, why he would be charged $50 for getting on an earlier flight than the one he was ticketed for. Within three minutes, JetBlue had replied.
etBlue answered Alex's question -- and he wasn't even mad about it. At this point, most companies would pat themselves on the back and call it a job well done.
Half an hour later, Alex tweeted again -- this time about how amazed he was at the steps JetBlue had taken to provide him with an unexpectedly exceptional customer service experience.
The employees behind JetBlue's Twitter handle aren't just social media marketers. There are three teams that tweet from the @JetBlue account: the marketing team, the corporate communications team, and Laurie's team -- Customer Commitment. Her team is made up of seasoned customer service professionals who answer customer service tweets on Twitter instead of on the phone.
But JetBlue doesn't just respond to everything blindly. They prioritize responding to tweets where they'd be contributing value. "We recognize how important it is to measure the ROI of our social media efforts, but we actually make a point of not measuring response rate on Twitter," says Laurie.
In other words, employees don't feel pressured to hit a response goal by sending quick responses to every single tweet that comes in. "We want our employees to engage smartly, and for the conversations to be organic and natural. We look for opportunities to add value and connect with our customers, not just respond to every single mention that comes our way."
And with 2,500-2,600 Twitter mentions every day, you can bet JetBlue has people working hard to cover their social media accounts 24/7 and read every single tweet that comes in. And, impressively, they average a 10-minute response time. I tested this out myself before boarding my JetBlue flight last weekend. Sure enough, the Saturday night team responded in 10 minutes on the dot.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
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