Qantas - Local Measure

Qantas - Local Measure

According to social metrics company Social Bakers, the airline industry is the most ‘socially devoted ’ industry on Facebook and Twitter, with carriers such as KLM and Delta being the most advanced in monitoring social media for passenger inquiries and feedback. However, to allow airlines to pick up an online conversation about their brand, the messages have to feature the airline’s name/hashtag or a strong reference to it.

Qantas is currently trialling technology from Australian start-up Local Measure at 10 airports (domestically and at SIN, LA, JFK, LHR, DXB) to monitor social media conversations by those passengers inside its airport lounges – who have shared their location by turning on geo-location in Twitter or checking into a service such as Foursquare or Facebook Places – regardless of whether the user mentions Qantas by name.

Besides allowing Qantas to amplify positive feedback, the biggest benefit of the trial sofar for Qantas has been in customer service and group insights. Says Qantas Head of Digital Communications, Jo Boundy,

Passengers don’t necessarily go and tell the lounge manager ‘I liked my Neil Perry ‘pie’, but they do take photos and tweet about it in real-time with hashtags and suddenly they’ve given you a very clear indication of what they think of the product inside the lounges. They also might say there’s something wrong with the barista coffee machine or there’s a leaky toilet, stuff we’d never normally see, and now we’re getting it in real time and are able to fix.