Airline Social Media Outlook 2019

Executive Summary

For the past eight years, SimpliFlying has surveyed airline professionals globally to get their perspectives on the present and the future of social media’s impact on the industry. We publish our findings based on the survey in this annual Social Media Outlook Report.

The objectives of this report is to help airlines stay abreast of the latest trends, to benchmark themselves against the competition and make informed decisions. We enable this by presenting findings, trends and actionable insights derived from the survey data in an easy to understand format.

In the 2019 report, professionals from 52 airlines from six continents participated in our survey. Over 40% of the participants were senior executives, indicating that the responses have strong intent.

Building on the trends from last year, this year’s survey shows a continued push towards increasing social media staff, with added responsibilities. It is heartening to see senior management overwhelmingly starting to support social media teams too. The continued popularity of dedicated teams along with the rise in prominence of hybrid teams indicates airlines are taking social media seriously and are grappling with the best way to drive key objectives. Team sizes continue to increase as well.

Further, providing customer service through social media, which emerged as a priority last year, has now taken centre stage. In fact, a growing number of airlines have even placed their social media teams within their customer service departments. In addition, there are a few surprising findings in this year’s report too.

I hope you find the insights from the Airline Social Media Outlook Report 2019 helpful in building consensus, securing budgets and adapting your airline for the future.

Dedicatedly yours,

Shashank Nigam CEO, SimpliFlying

Social media teams are getting bigger. Three years ago, social media teams with less than five people were found in over 60% of the airlines. In 2019, this number will stand at just over 30%

Social media is becoming important to the C-Suite with 76% of respondents believing that it has gained importance. This is likely due to the recent high-profile social media crises airlines have dealt with. This also settles the debate that social media was not a passing fad.

Budgets are on the rise. Over 60% of respondents indicated that social media budgets are likely to rise in 2019. The key reasons for the budget increase were advertising spend (40%) and acquisition of new tools (34%).

Social customer service is becoming more important. Customer service teams are now involved in the social media efforts of 44% of airlines, up from 26% last year. Metrics have also improved with an increased focus on resolution times and resolution rates.

The search for ROI remains a primary concern for 61% of C-level respondents. This can be tough since many airlines do not track the funnel from social media through the booking path and a lot of resources go in non-revenue generating areas like customer service.

To understand how airlines are using social media, we always start with one thing: the people. Because the way an airline distributes its human resources can tell us a lot about its priorities, challenges and needs.

Small social media teams no longer suffice

When we asked how many people in the airline were dedicated to social media, we found that teams are getting bigger in general. In 2019, most airlines will have between five to ten staff in their social media teams. Three years ago, social media teams with less than five people were found in over 60% of the airlines. In 2019, this number will stand at just over 30%.

The key reason for this change is that social media has increased in both importance and complexity. Due to this, teams of less than five staff likely became too small even for airlines that outsource most of their social media activities. Airlines that persist with teams of less than five full-time staff are either very small or tend to fall significantly behind the curve.

How many full-time equivalent staff work on social media? (Assuming 1 full-time equivalent = 8hrs a day)

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we found a marked increase in teams of more than 25 people. Almost a fifth of the airlines will have teams with more than 25 people in 2019. These teams - rare a few years ago - are a consequence of the increased importance of social customer service and the preference of some airlines to keep the service in-house. Providing good quality social care, 24/7, needs significant resources. This renewed emphasis on customer service will come up several times in this year’s survey and will likely be one of the most important trends in the next few years.

KLM is known to have one of the largest social media teams in the world, with over 150 people. They provide round-the-clock customer service service in 10 languages over multiple channels like Facebook, Twitter and WeChat. The airline has become the gold standard on doing social media right. Part of the reason for its success is having a dedicated team from the beginning.

As technologies like chatbots are integrated into social customer service, it is likely that it will not be as labour intensive as it is today. However, airlines will still need to increase their headcount to keep up with the rise in the number of questions and interactions that come from social media channels.

Moreover, as traditional platforms like Facebook lose prominence in the lives of certain demographics like millennials, we are likely to go through a “turbulent” phase where users will move to new platforms. To cope with the change airlines will need to adapt and evaluate other channels. With increased complexity, they will likely need to increase their headcount.

Later in the report, we’ll take a more detailed look at how airlines structure their teams but for now, it may be useful to note the rise in both the 5-10 staff and the more than 25 staff groups. These are likely to be a reflection of the two dominant team structures - the dedicated and hybrid teams.

Interestingly, the seriousness of the staff shortage in the airline social media space seems to be declining over the years. The majority of airlines still reported that they would need more staff in 2019, but the number was considerably lower when compared with that from previous years.

Team Structures

The continued dominance of hybrid and dedicated team structures is in line with what we saw in previous years.

What team structure do you currently have?

Dedicated teams become the preferred choice in 2019

Dedicated social media teams are specialized groups that operate within the airline and can provide very good integration with all of the airline’s functions. They are especially efficient for larger airlines that have economies of scale to support them. In smaller airlines, this structure is sometimes found in the form of a few dedicated individuals who are in charge of all the airline’s social media operations.

The biggest advantage of having a dedicated team inside the airline is agility. This can be the key in providing good social customer service and coming out on top during a crisis. Some of SimpliFlying Awards’ top winners over the years like American Airlines have dedicated teams.

Dedicated social media teams, while resource intensive, offer the best long term value for airlines.

At American Airlines, there are over 20 full-time social media staff that deal with both social care and content marketing. What makes American Airlines stand out is that the staff on the social media team have been at the airline for an average of 18 years! While recruiting for the team, the airline chose experience in handling situations rather than familiarity with tools. Due to this, American Airlines can boast a high issue resolution rate on social media, not just a short average reply time. The airline’s dedicated team structure has also allowed it to create processes that has allowed it to release a statement from the CEO within 20 minutes of a crisis erupting on Twitter.

Dedicated team (i.e. all members work exclusively on social media)

Distributed team (i.e. all people from various departments work parttime on social media)

Hybrid (i.e. a combination of the above)

Other External agency only (i.e. where all the work is done by an external agency with no apecialised social media employee of an airline)

Why are hybrid teams still popular?

Hybrid teams are those that mix a specialized internal team with external resources and are the structure of choice for airlines on a budget and those that may need to scale up or down quickly. For example, a team of two social media team staff may be complemented by a point person from Corporate Communications, Customer Care and eCommerce each.

For small airlines, this structure may be the only option. They don’t have the economies of scale needed for a dedicated team when it comes to providing 24 hours of customer service. This is also a very flexible option that is often found in airlines that are scaling up their operations or who have experienced fast growth.

At larger airlines, the hybrid teams make less sense but can sometimes provide advantages to reach markets where the airline has a limited presence. For example, South African Airways has a hybrid structure. There is a core social media team based in Johannesburg, the headquarters, which is complemented by point people in each of the outstation offices. While the core team decides on the overall strategy, the local teams have the autonomy to customize the messages and channels for each campaign. This allows the brand to adapt to each market, while still reflecting a coherent social media strategy.

While the hybrid team structure provides flexibility, it is slower to respond to changes and deprives the airline of potentially useful information. This is because everything needs to often be approved by the core social media team. This is especially true in times of crises where tight coordination with Operations and early warnings from social media monitoring teams can make all the difference.

For either of these structures to be efficient, the challenge is always good communication across departments. This is especially true on the customer service front. The airline needs to identify problems before they snowball out of control and can also seize opportunities for marketing. However, this can only happen if their team is able to pass on the information to the right people quickly.

At the same time, customer service teams can greatly benefit from integration with operations. As we will see later on, this topic is high on the priority list of airline managers and executives.

Who’s in charge?

Having learnt how many people are involved in social media and how the teams are structured, we’ll now dive a bit deeper to understand which departments are getting involved in running social media.

Unsurprisingly the field continues to be dominated by Marketing teams which, in most cases, have been in charge from the very beginning. Having said that, more departments are getting involved in day-to-day social media operations.

Currently which department(s) handle social media?

The most important change is the increased involvement of Customer Service teams, that is in line with what was mentioned earlier - the growth in social care operations. This is in contrast to the reduced involvement of Corporate Communications and eCommerce teams.

The latter observation is especially interesting because it shows how social media is maturing. The decreased involvement of Corporate Communications and eCommerce teams is likely the consequence of the transfer of these responsibilities to the Marketing team, which acts as the main coordinator of all airline-initiated communications.

What this means is that Marketing is in charge of any proactive outbound communications. The responses to these messages are likely the domain of Customer Service, who will respond to them and ideally keep Marketing and Operations updated with any relevant information.

Serving the customer

The gradual shift of focus towards customer service is also demonstrated in the chart below. While small teams of less than 5 people remain the majority, we see a decline in all categories, except one. Customer Service teams of more than 25 people are set to grow three times next year! This reinforces the growing importance of providing good social customer service for airlines.

How many full-time equivalent staff work on social media customer service? (Assuming 1 full-time equivalent = 8hrs a day)

At the same time, the continued prevalence of smaller teams is likely attributable to airlines using a hybrid team structure. This is where the bulk of customer service interactions are externalized to the call centre or external agents.

Evidence for the shift in focus towards customer service is also found in that it was the most common amongst the newly added priorities for social media teams. In second place we found chatbots, a tool that is closely linked to customer service.

What new responsibility has been added to social media in the past year?

Interestingly, as customers move from traditional telephone-based customer service to social media, airlines are responding by shifting their resources. In this year’s survey, 25% of airlines stated that they had already moved resources from call centres to social and a further 37% said they will do so in the future.

Airline brands that are regarded well by the customers understand that today, providing good customer service via social media has a direct impact on the brand. Nobody knows this better than Hong Kong Airlines. Recently, the airline accidently posted a business class fare from Los Angeles to multiple cities in Asia for just $560. This was clearly an error fare. Previously, airlines have dealt with error fares in two ways - angry rebuttal or a hesitant acceptance. Not Hong Kong Airlines.

The airline tweeted within 48 hours of the error fare being published that they would honour the fares, because it is the right thing to do. Because the airline had made a promise, they had to keep it. Following the announcement, the airline chatted with multiple customers on Twitter in a colloquial manner, how they had made a mistake and look forward to welcoming them.

Hong Kong Airlines’ social listening tool detected the Twitter activity first. This was tackled by a dedicated social media team quickly. Finally, the manner in which they dealt with the issue publicly won them more hearts. What more could a fast growing airline ask for?

If customer service is one of the top priorities, are resources or budgets being shifted from call centre customer service to social media customer service?

PART 2: THE PRIORITIES

Social media is becoming important in the C-Suite. Specifically, 76.3% of respondents believe that it has gained importance for the C-level executives. This is likely due to the recent high-profile social media crises airlines have dealt with, as well as the settling of the debate that social media was a passing fad.

No, less important

Yes, more important

Another more interesting story is revealed by analyzing the priorities that airline employees of different seniority levels have for social media. Across the board, customer service and brand were the top priorities. Of all seniority groups, we saw junior managers place the most importance on customer service while the more senior executives focused more on the brand. Meanwhile, middle management was the only group that placed significant importance on ancillary revenue.

What is your top priority for social media for the year 2018-2019?

The focus on both brand and customer service as priorities makes sense since they are effectively two sides of the same coin. Today, any customer service issue on social media can get out of hand and impact the brand directly.

Junior managers likely focus more on the customer service aspects because they are more exposed to customer feedback and interactions while senior management take a more strategic view and focus on the brand.

Crisis management this year rated very low as a priority likely because of the relatively good year we have had in terms of aviation safety as well as airlines stepping up the game in light of gaffes like United’s.

Future strategic priorities

When asked about strategic priorities for the future, the question of resources proved to be one of the main concerns, especially for middle and senior management. 32% of senior management and 41% of middle management felt that they needed more resources for social media next year. This is in line with expectation given the increasing role being played by social and the ever-growing requirements in terms of staff and monetary investment.

Which of the following will be your strategic priority going into the future?

Other

Align social media better with operations

Drive more resource into my social media department

Better training to social media

Get better technology tools

Restructure my team

Monetary investment has been an especially hot topic for airlines as organic reach has continued to drop and airlines have been forced to significantly increase their spend on promoted posts, advertisements and other forms of paid engagement on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. A side effect of this changing social media environment may also be the increased focus on training for junior management to build up the skills required by this new scenario.

After the lack of resources, we find the need to align social with operations as the biggest priority for airlines in 2019. This is a topic that we had widely discussed about in previous reports and remains of the utmost importance, especially given the increased focus on customer service that we have seen throughout the report.

The benefits of a good alignment between social media and operations have to do with the need for social teams to have a complete picture of the airline’s operations. Good integration allows social media teams to serve as an early warning system for the operations team. For example, at Southwest Airlines, there are two social media desks within the Operations Control Center. This ensures that any issues that pop up on social media can be shared with Operations immediately, and vice versa.

These benefits also extend to the Customer Service teams who can see problems at airports brewing before Operations are officially notified, and at the same time need operational updates to inform passengers. For example, during a recent storm that caused multiple delays, the Southwest Airlines social media staff positioned in the Operations Control Center did a Facebook Live stream interview with the airline’s weather expert. A detailed explanation was given into the situation to calm the nerves of anxious passengers.

The challenge in aligning these two teams is that they effectively speak two different languages. On one side we find people with a very technical mindset while on the other we find people who are more focused on communication and language. Operations also does not initially see the value in coordinating with the social media teams. Though, once the working relationship is established, they see increased benefits over time.

An important change in metrics - Average Reply Time’s importance decreases

Of all the changes and trends that came out of this survey the one that made our consultants the happiest is perhaps the one shown in the graph below. After many years of recommendations and articles, we have finally started to see a decline in the use of average reply time as the only customer service metric airlines paid attention to.

What KPIS do you use for measuring impact of social media on customer Service?

In the past, this had been a “showcase” metric that many airlines had used to demonstrate how good and responsive they were on social media. However, this metric, while useful, didn’t really assess how well the airline was doing since it ignored if the problem was actually solved or how long it took to solve it.

In fact, many airline teams have started to set up automated response systems that would acknowledge all incoming messages and significantly drive down the response times. This race to respond faster was not good for the customers. Even for the airline, it was often not much more than a vanity metric with some PR value. Though, we have to admit that Average Reply Time highlighted the importance of not ignoring the customer on social media.

Today we still recommend response time as a metric but only when used in tandem with other metrics like resolution rates and resolution times. Both of these in this year’s survey were on the rise, giving hope for a more efficient future for customer service. In fact, Average Resolution Time is now almost as important a metric as Average Reply Time.

PART 3: FUTURE OUTLOOK

Social media is changing and becoming a more mature channel. It is no longer a new frontier where rules are still being written and everything is free. As seen by the importance given to it by senior management, it is certainly not a fad.

Over the past few years the space has matured. Organic reach has plummeted even as more people hang out on multiple social networks. Airlines have been forced to spend more on paid promotions to cope with the reduced reach. They have also had to hire more people and acquire new tools to deal with the increased engagement levels. Since these trends are likely to continue, it is no surprise to see airlines gearing up for them. Over 60% of our respondents said a budget increase for social media was likely in 2019.

How likely is an increase in social media budget in 2018-2019?

The main obstacles to an increase in budget were a lack of overall budget for social media and the lack of backing from senior management. This is likely because greater marketing spend is going toward digital advertising, like search engine marketing. Senior management also focus on the brand, rather than budget intensive customer service operations.

What is the main obstacle in the way of a budgetary increase?

Most of the budget increases will go towards advertising spend, followed by the acquisition of new tools. Advertising spend is needed due to declining organic reach, as explained earlier. New tools are needed for managing workflows, especially for customer service, as well as managing channels.

What is likely the primary focus of this budget increase?

On the future of bots

A good part of the budget increase dedicated to the acquisition of new tools is likely to be dedicated to bots and other automation systems.

Last year, chatbots were being looked at as a gimmick - something good for a marketing stunt or to make the airline look innovative but without any immediate impact on the airline bottom-line. Today the picture has changed significantly and we are seeing more airlines taking them seriously.

Most of the chatbots are being deployed in sales and customer service to help airlines deal with the increasing volumes of direct user interactions. The philosophy behind their application, however, changes depending on the airline.

Mexico’s leading ultra low cost airline Volaris uses chatbots as first responders, whose job is to respond to as many questions as possible without human intervention. In this role, their function is to act as a filter, engaging humans only where the situation goes beyond basic questions.

Other airlines like KLM take a different approach. Bots at KLM create draft replies to customer messages and then pass them on to a human for final adjustment and posting. This system reduces the workload on the human team by doing a lot of the background work for them but still leaves space for some customization.

Another area of expansion for chatbots is the integration with the airline’s reservation systems that enables them to check in passengers, sell flights and provide updated flight information. This is increasingly adopted by airlines as a way to enable users who don’t have the airline app installed to interact with the airline’s systems and prefer to use messaging apps like Facebook Messenger or Whatsapp. KLM uses bots via these apps to increase its footprint and reach customers who may have not installed the airline’s app.

Marketing, social media and the elusive ROI!

The increased importance - and cost - of social media to marketing is also underlined by the percentage of the total marketing budget that is being dedicated to social media. We are seeing a continued reduction in the number of airlines that dedicate less than 10% of their total marketing budget to social, even though these are still the majority, and a stable increase of those that dedicate more than 10% to it.

What percentage of your marketing budget is dedicated to social media?

What is the biggest challenge you face going into 2018-2019?

Insufficient allocation of resources to social media

Lack of senior management support

Lack of training

Lack of supporting tools of software

Inflexible team structure

CHART 16

Despite this increase, the biggest challenge for middle and senior management continues to be the lack of resources.

This lack of budget has historically been caused by two factors. The first is the constant budget constraints that airlines suffer from due to the low margins and externalities that characterize the industry. The second is the level of interest and priority that senior management places on social media when allocating budgets.

Since this year we have seen senior management placing more importance on social media we suspect that the driving force behind the lack of resources is the overall lack of budget. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that senior management ranked the lack of resources as their biggest challenge.

Show me the money!

If we zoom in on the top concerns that senior management have with regards to social media, it seems that 61% of them are still searching for a return on investment (ROI). This can be tough since many airlines do not track the funnel from social media through the booking path. Another reason it may be hard to nail a number to the ROI from social media is because a lot of resources go in non-revenue generating areas like customer service.

Senior Middle Junior

What is the primary concern of C-level management regarding social media

Having said that, KLM has publicly shared that every €1 investment in social media earns the airline €1.2 in direct revenue and €1.8 in indirect revenue. That’s an ROI of 3X! Across the Atlantic, when we worked with LATAM Airlines on social media customer service, we realised that each call center agent can reply to six queries on social media in the same time it took to address one customer over the phone - a potential 6X cost reduction.

We conclude that it is not hard to derive ROI numbers from social media. Airline executives just need to get down to doing it. Unless there’s a clear path to ROI, social media teams will find it hard to justify the need for more resources.

What’s the data being used for?

Ambiguity in data usage is the other reason social media teams may be finding it hard to seek resources. In 2019, 68% of teams will use social media data for customer segmentation, which is about the same as previous years. Almost 60% of airlines aim to use social data for customer service. The rest are split between new product strategies, budgeting and internal performance management.

What do you use your social media data for?

Perhaps because airlines are trying to use social media data for so many areas, there is no clear use for the data. If they used the data overwhelmingly for customer insights or support, for example, they could build a stronger case for dedicating resources to social media too. Moreover, over 45% of respondents felt that the teams needed better training to interpret and make use of data from social media. Perhaps that’s the long term solution.

What is needed most to make better use of social media data?

CHART 19

CONCLUSION

A social media strategy is no longer a luxury for airline marketing departments. Social media today an urgent necessity that has the potential to deliver multiple benefits, while ensuring that today’s connected travellers can interact with the airline on their preferred channel.

It is unsurprising, then, that at many airlines social media is already a mainstream function with significant senior management support. Moreover, executives have recognised the distinct nature of social media practices from traditional textbook-oriented marketing or corporate communications.

Traditional practices have been turned on their head. Customer service on social media is now paramount. Airlines realise that in the age of social media, customer service is the brand. Providing good customer service via social media directly impacts the perception of the airline.

The future lies in ensuring that airlines can use social media data and convert them into actionable insights that will yield closer relationships with customers through greater personalisation.

However, before this can be achieved, airlines require significant investment in resources and specialised training, especially with regards to social media data being used.

We hope you found the insights in this report helpful. Please write to us at outlook@ simpliflying.com if you have any questions or need any of the detailed charts for your internal presentations.

- Your SimpliFlying Team

Survey takers by region

Survey takers management level

Respondents’ department

Ideally, which department(s) should handle media?

What KPIS do you use for measuring impact of social media on Brand Awareness?

What KPIS do you use for measuring impact of social media on Revenue?

Which one of the following aspects do you find social media most useful for?

Which of the following aspects do you find social media least useful for?

What do you find most potential in for social media and wish to invest in?

If you had to choose only one of the following to dedicate all additional budget to, what should it be?

42.

43.

44.

45.