On Feb 1st Westjet announced that their ultra low cost carrier sub brand, Swoop would begin servicing markets in Canada with fares as low as $7.50 one-way for flights between BC and Ontario between June 20 - Dec 15, 2018 with blackouts on long weekends. No misplaced decimal in that statement, yes a $7.50 fare, not $750. Naturally the news spread like wildfire. The catch … [Read more...]
News jacking: from traditional approaches to new insights with Facebook Live
The United Airlines public relations debacle has been high profile news this last week. For those who may have missed it (not sure how that is even possible), United had a passenger removed forcibly from an overbooked flight, and the mistreatment was captured on video, which later went viral online, then received significant earned media coverage. The subsequent fall out as the … [Read more...]
Seeing complaints as gifts on social media
A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog post that documented the negative social media and earned media fall out for Air Canada when a Westjet pilot came to the rescue with pizza to some very hungry Air Canada passengers. The AC flight had been re-routed due to poor weather, to and airport where food services had already closed, and since Air Canada had not provisioned for a meal on … [Read more...]
Customer relationship management in the age of social
Social media has upped the game of customer relationship management. Gone are the days when you would write a complaint letter and wait for a reply, or leave a frustrated message on an answering service, often to be forgotten or ignored. Those complaints were one to one. Today’s complaints are quite apt to reach one to millions. Social media and smart phones have put … [Read more...]
Values-based marketing: a 2017 trend to watch
So much of what is going on politically in the US and beyond is at its core, based on values. On one side are values wishing to restore prosperity through nationalism and "America first" attitudes which have come with a dearth of clarity on measures and actions on how people will be treated to execute that plan. On the other side are values of compassion, diversity and … [Read more...]