The dichotomy that is Comcast customer service

Comcast is one of those companies on the leading edge of leveraging social media for delivering high levels of customer service.  In fact, I recently gave them praise for quickly helping me resolve a networking problem in my house entirely through Twitter.

Sometimes, however, even companies that understand customer service fall down when it comes to the basics, as can be seen by what is taking place in my small home town of Winthrop, Massachusetts.  On Thursday afternoon my father in-law lost TV reception in his house.  We called and, after navigating through the IVR system, reached a message stating that there were known problems in our area, stay tuned.  It is now Sunday night, no TV service.  This, in isolation, is not a big deal, however, as you start to dig in, this is a major failure by Comcast, a failure that I hope is addressed both in restitution to the customers affected and also in the processes and systems where failures have occurred.  Lets dig in:

• My father in-law has called Comcast more than a dozen times and I have called for him as well.  Each time, people have no knowledge of the past calls, that his house was added to a broader ticket.  He has had his box reset, been told it is a broad problem, been told to wait.  No information on when this problem will be fixed.
• The IVR system forces you down a path where you enter your phone # and, if you answer the prompts correctly, are always taken to the automated response that tells you to wait.  You must answer the questions incorrectly to reach a real person.
• As my father in-law has chatted with neighbors he has learned that many of them are dealing with their own television outages.  Some of these failures have gone on for a week or longer, each of them waiting, calling multiple times a day, no resolution.
• One of the times I called for my father in-law I had him added to a ticket covering multiple homes, being told that Winthrop was having a large outage, ongoing, no clear time for fixing.  If I wanted to call another department I could discuss a refund.  What?!?!?!  Comcast, you are failing to deliver service, failing to deliver answers, and failing to simply reach out and take care of those customers….  This is not acceptable.

Please understand, I have nothing against Comcast or its people.  However, these failures are indicative of a lack of process, poor system integration, and a misunderstanding of how to service your customers.  Comcast:

• Please let me know how many customers in Winthrop are down and the total # of days they have been without service.
• What is your plan for proactively solving the problem and “making things right” with these customers?
• Lets sit down and discuss where your system or process failures are happening.  If handled properly we can work together to fix these problems.
• I know you want to deliver great service.  The efforts of people like Frank Eliason show me that you’re on the right track.  Lets see if we can work to make failures like this a thing of the past.

John

Meeting people where they are, the State Department does it right

I chatted with Bill May, the State Department  Director of  the Office of Innovative Engagement, on Friday.  The State Department is on the leading edge of collaboration, of social media, understanding the need to balance engagement, transparency, security, and common sense.  As expected, Bill understands all of this well, businesses and other agencies can learn from the examples Bill shared.

When the President was planning a trip to Ghana it was important to lay the groundwork that the American President was coming and that he was looking to engage, to hear from people and to answer their questions, concerns.  In the United States this would be a challenge, but, between papers, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and more, there are plenty of channels through which the message can be delivered.  In Ghana, however, around 3% of the population has internet access, a problem common in many parts of the world.  Fortunately, mobile is in use by roughly 80% of the population and provided a better channel.  Understand, when I say mobile, I am not discussing the iPhone.  We are talking about much simpler devices, much simpler communication is required.  Here is what the State Department did to reach the population:

• By understanding the demographics, the technology available, by using common sense, they initially reached out via old-fashioned press releases.  The release informed citizens that the American President wanted to hear from people, hear their questions.  It was distributed in four languages, through multiple channels, and it offered short and long SMS codes for people to respond back.
• Want to know how many responses they received? Around 17,000 people used the power of the technologies they had available to respond back.
• The questions were reviewed, summarized into 5 areas, areas such as government corruption, and given to the President and his team.  The result was a six-minute podcast, distributed back out to people through the local embassies.  Not only were people given a channel to ask questions, they were given a channel to hear the response.  Collaboration, engagement, social media, came together.
• The South African population is slightly different, however, and to reach this user base, which is younger, more technologically advanced, they worked with a company named Mxit (http://www.mixtlifestyle.com/index) which provides mobile instant messaging services in South Africa.
• What were the results in South Africa?  More than 250,000 comments were received.
• The population in South Africa, those that responded, were younger and their questions reflected it.  Instead of asking about government corruption and the impact of HIV, for example, they were interested in learning what the President’s favorite basketball team was (just one example). 

What excites me, personally, is the fact that I see this same process unfolding domestically.  I see messages on Twitter asking people if they have questions for the President, questions he will respond to in a future Youtube video.  Nice, open government is slowly beginning to work.

These same practices can really benefit your business or agency.  Local towns and governments can cheaply leverage the same process to reach citizens.  Enterprises can use the same process to reach employees, to reach customers.  Just remember that not everyone you want to talk to is on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube.  Understand where your audience lives.

An important aspect of this communication is security.  Both personal security in some of the African countries, and data security across the board.  The State Department understands this and you must also understand it as you roll out your collaboration strategies.  Here are a couple of quick points:

• While the State Department knew the phone #s responding, there is no data tying these #s back to individuals.  Is it possible to do so?  Absolutely.  However, this data was kept anonymous to ensure everyone’s safety, everyone’s willingness to respond.
• Bill and I chatted on Skype during our phone call.  We chatted, however, on a completely separate network isolated from the main agency/business networks.  Understanding the risks enables your company/agency to make smart decisions. You must engage, just do not be blind to the risks while doing so.

While we covered a lot of other topics during our chat, that is all for now.  If you have questions or comments, let me know as I am sure we can get them answered.

John

A few random thoughts as we near the end of February

So few thoughts, so much time…  Oh wait, I think I meant so many thoughts, so little time….  Oh well, either way, in no random order, here are a few of the items I have on my mind at the moment:

• Facebook was granted a patent for news feeds…. Dear Patent Office, could you please give me the name of the insightful geniuses that approved this patent.  I have decided to patent the respiration system, having used it for years I feel I deserve a patent for my role in its development.  Dear Citizen’s of planet earth, don’t fear, you can still use yours but you may have to pay me a small fee.
• The White House is working to hire an official Tweeter for the President.  Mr. President, I have a face for Twitter and would appreciate your consideration for this position.  I like this move, honestly, as the majority of senior political twitter accounts are 1-way push communication channels.  If this is an account that will engage in 2-way dialog, good move.
• The open government movement is real and is being taken seriously by those inside and outside the government.  Well known citizens like Craig Newmark and Tim O’Reilly are doing their part but we all must participate.  While there are countless examples, pay attention to:
  • The Federal Agency IdeaScale Dashboard, OpenGovTracker, is continuing to evolve as a platform and, even more importantly, great ideas are being discussed daily across a variety of agencies.  You have to check this out.
  • The Top 10 Government Twitters To Follow is a great place to find some passionate people who are driving this change.  Check it out and, while you’re there, could you give me your three votes?  Well, since you’re there anyway, I thought I would ask…
• Those that doubt the power of Social CRM need to reconsider.  Yesterday, while struggling with my Comcast network access, I was able to get out a tweet to the good people at Comcast.  Within 5 minutes a rep, ComcastBonnie, was on it.  With a communication style fitting Twitter she quickly had the problem resolved.  Thank you.
• I like the moves being made by Lithium on the partnership front.  Their partnership with Sapient is a sign of good things to come, expect more announcements soon.
• I read a great post on how to handle negative comments in social media and blog that I highly recommend you read.
  • The conversation reminded me of the poor behavior of some of my fellow members of the Social CRM community, the anonymous attacks I wrote about recently.  As is often the case, addressing the comments head on (offering to let them respond on a blog post) resulted in them quietly disappearing.  When have negative comments or anonymous attacks, address them in the open.  If there is value in their comments, recognize it.
• Finally, a prediction.  Watch Salesforce in Q2.  My money is on them buying a listening platform, perhaps Radian6.  It would be a great addition to their offering and I like that pairing.

What is on your mind?

John

Apathy and arrogance, a great combination؟

My wife and I were discussing apathy in the workplace as she is experiencing a fair amount of it from co-workers.  She works in a school setting where budget cuts, years without contracts and pay raises, lack of supplies, etc.., have left people burned out and apathetic about far too many aspects of their jobs.

As I asked my twitter community about this situation, one of my friends relayed this “Just had the bigwig come talk to us & basically say keep working hard so my bonus goes up and eventually we will lift the pay freeze”….  Arrogance, when combined with apathy and frustration is a miserable combination.

If you have a job, leave the apathy behind. There are plenty of people who do not have a job and would gladly step into your “miserable” situation.  Bring your A-game everyday and let’s get something done.

This ends our weekly inspirational speech, paid for by the National Committee for Change.  While I just made that up, sounds impressive, eh?

John

Collaboration tools saved 5 state parks, can it help your business or agency?

I was impressed when I read Nancy’s post on GovLoop detailing how social media saved five state parks in Virginia, a cost of $500,000 per year.  I was so impressed with what I read that I wanted to follow-up with Nancy to better understand the original thinking behind these social efforts, the cost, and ultimately the return (more than $500,000, not bad).
 
Q. Nancy, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule.  What prompted you to begin your social media efforts, what were your goals?
A. Whether you liked the results of the 2008 Presidential elections, it taught me that social media was a force to be reckoned with. Our goal was to increase awareness of what Virginia State Parks have to offer. There are still Virginians that have never been to a state park and don’t know what we are all about. We also don’t spend a lot of money on advertising outside of Virginia so this was a way to reach more out of state potential visitors.
 
Q. How does social media fit into your job, into the job done by the park department?
A. I am the Operations Director. State Parks is actually part of a larger agency, the Department of Conservation and Recreation. We have a public communications office but their staffing is limited so several of us take on various aspects of marketing and promoting state parks. As Operations Director, I am responsible for our reservation center, sign shop, logistics center, volunteerism, and serve as liaison between our parks operations and the centralized support dvisions in administration and finance. We don’t have a big central office so many of us wear extra hats. Since I was originally hired as Reservation Center Manager, I worked with our webmaster on our website within the first few years of my tenure. So I became a subject matter expert on what our parks had to offer the general public. I am interested in technology so you might say I just volunteered to add the social media to the rest of my job. 
 
 
Q. How many people are involved in your social media efforts today?
A. I coordinate the efforts. We actually have 26 registered bloggers (although a few have not yet blogged and some folks blog more than others). I moderate all of the posts and comments. We are averaging about ten a week. I think that will jump significantly this spring and summer. I am the person behind the Twitter account @vastateparks. I must mention that several of our park staff with Twitter accounts do a nice job of supporting with retweets and blog posts. Michael Salotti is our Facebook guru and I post there some as well. Don Byrne is our enewsletter editor. The enewsletter has been around longer than all of our other efforts. The blog, Twitter and Facebook efforts were all established in December 2008.
 
 
Q. What tools are you leveraging?
A. I pretty much addressed the tools in the last question. We have tried to be smart though. Blog posts automatically get tweeted and are posted on Facebook using Networked Blogs. Facebook status updates are also posted on Twitter. We have an events database for listing programs and special events at various parks. We have had these available for query on our website for a number of years. Don Byrne, my IT guy and enewsletter editor worked out a way to have them automatically post to Twitter ten days out. We duplicate a lot of content on our enewsletter and blog since they reach different audiences. A lot of the blog posts are program announcements or press releases repackaged for the blog.
 
Q. What is the yearly cost of your social media efforts?
A. That’s a tough one. When you don’t hire folks dedicated to do only social media and have just squeezed those duties into the rest of what they do it is hard to say. Since I worked more than a 40 hour week before I took on the social media, I guess you could say I’m volunteering. We do use Compendium Blogware for our blog hosting and SEO optimization. We aren’t paying for any other tools. I’d say the overall cost is under $20,000.
 
 
Q. What other social media success stories have you had?
A. We started posting on Facebook on Thursday the parks that had cabins available for the weekend. This generated a lot of interest so we offered a 25% discount for last minute cabin reservations. The weather has been so bad it has been hard to tell how successful this is but we do know that a number of people have taken advantage of the discount. Normally these are cabins that would have sat empty so this has been great. While I do not have a good measure of the success, I know that we have increased awareness for our routine programs offered in the parks. For years staff were content to just cater to folks who happened to be in the park anyway. But we have some wonderful programs and a lot of effort goes into them. Now we have a way to push that information out to the public.

Massachusetts State Treasury is getting social

I recently exchanged e-mails with Catherine Gropp who is the Assistant Director of Communications and the Social Media Coordinator at the Office of the Treasury for Massachusetts.    Here are some of Catherine’s thoughts on open government (government 2.0) and on th use of collaboration strategies and technologies.

Q. What are your thoughts on government 2.0, the open government initiative?
A. The open government initiative is a great way to not only keep citizens informed on their local and federal government but a way to keep the elected officials honest.  Working in the public sector and in communications, it is strikingly apparent that there is a constant struggle with getting the right information to constituents.  With the open government initiative you are bypassing the scrutiny that can come using strictly media outlets to disperse information.

With open government, you are empowering people to learn more about what goes on in government and to get engaged. With the increased use of social media in the past few years it has become even simpler for people to stay informed and involved.  It is fascinating to see the increased interest in our public leaders just on Twitter alone.  President Obama, an innovator in using Twitter to connect with people, has over 3 million followers.  Since President Obama took office, and even on his campaign trail, there has been a significant shift towards a more honest and helpful government.  Social media has been a passageway for many people who may not have been actively involved in politics or the general happenings of their local and federal governments.

Q. Why do you use social media? What are you looking to accomplish? How does it fit into your overall communication strategy?
A. The Treasury uses social media as a tool to disperse information and inform constituents on the divisions of the Treasury and events.  We find it as a useful tool to promote press releases, upcoming appearances for the Treasurer, road shows for the Abandoned Property Department, and board meetings from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.  Another way we use it is to promote events from our Financial Education Department.  This in depth department has monthly brown bag lunch financial seminars and bi annual free Money Conferences that we push registration through twitter and our website. We also use it to congratulate winners of contests that not only the Financial Education Department runs but our Veteran of the Month initiative and sometimes even highlighting lottery winners. 

Essentially what we try to accomplish is an outlet of communication direct from the Treasury to our constituents.  We try to link back to our website or our agency websites as much as possible so that people are driven to mass.gov/treasury to not only learn more about Treasurer Cahill but the Treasury in general.  There are many departments of the Treasury that do not get a lot of publicity and we like to use our social media and Twitter to highlight their efforts.  

Q. Do the efforts at Treasury fit into an overall strategic plan for the state or are the efforts at each agency separate?
A. Jess Weiss Project and Social Media Coordinator, for Mass.Gov and Brad Blake Director of New Media and Online Strategy for the Governor’s office have done a great job integrating the social media practitioners of state agencies.  Earlier this month they arranged a meet up for those state employees that work on social media accounts for their agencies to share ideas, strategies, problems etc.  It was here they introduced the tool kits for social media outlets and they also discussed drafting policies for all agencies and using the Mass.Gov sites as a starting point. 
Along with many of the other agencies, the Treasury sees the opportunity for Massachusetts to become an electronically savvy state. The congregation of Massachusetts state agency social media users is more than helpful in realizing that goal.  For such a new niche in state government, it is a helpful advantage for all state agencies to be able to compare thoughts and suggestions for each other.   

Q. What results are you seeing? Return on investment?
A. We recently added a “Share” button to our Treasury website.  The analytics track the amount of traffic going to our website and what people are doing with the information.  Our three highest share features are Print, Email and Facebook.  In the past few months, since we enabled the share feature, we have had a significant increase in “Veteran of the Month” nominees, which is our most shared part of our website.  The runner up is retirement information and our online pension calculator.

During our last eBay Auction there was a significant increase in “Twitter Buzz” with people tweeting about the auction and the goods available.  It was one of the most successful auctions with the items nearly doubling in value.  At its conclusion, it yielded approximately $102,000 and the appraised value of the items was $56,000.

Q. What social media usage policies/guidelines do you have in place for State employees?
A. Our Twitter policy for the MASSTreasury account is available on our website.  At the time it was drafted after looking at the MASSGovernor, MASSGov, and MASSAGO accounts.  Now there is a specific website: Mass.Gov/SocialMedia dedicated to helping state agencies draft their policies and use social media outlets with their tool kits.  The tool kits give definitions on common words, policy suggestions, and ways to differentiate between agency and individual. 

Treasury wide, we do not promote the use of social media during the workday, however many of our employees do “follow” the MASSTreasury account.  It is useful for the employees to learn more about different departments by using our tweets as a guide. Also with promoting registration for different programs for all State Employees and constituents, we hope they get the information from our website and our tweets, so it is expected to be used in moderation.

Q. Are you using a CRM system?
A. We currently have a section of our website called “Ask the Treasury” where constituents can email us with thoughts, concerns, issues etc.  Those are handled by a constituent liaison the same way calls, letters or any other forms of communication come into our office.  We have not had a lot of interaction with our followers on twitter for customer/constituent relations.  However if the opportunity did arise, the person monitoring the comments would be expected to get their contact information and contact them directly. 

We do monitor our followers on Twitter, we follow back those who follow us, send them a direct message thanking them for following, and directing them to our website for more information. 

Q. Have you seen results from social media that you could not have replicated using other communication channels?
A. The most successful results in using social media, especially with Twitter and our Flickr account, is showing what the Treasury does on a daily and operations basis.  It is nearly impossible to get a story in the newspaper everyday or on TV so social media, Twitter in particular, helps us get out word of things that are going on in the Treasury. 

We often put up photos of events the Treasury holds or Check Presentations from the School Building Authority, and it serves as a backup form of communication when you are not featured in the local news.  Often with the Check Presentations we will link right to the press release from the photos on Flickr.  That way, people not only see the photos, but they can read up on the amount of money the school received and learn a bit more about how the School Building Authority operates. 

The best and maybe worst part of the internet and social media revolution is that all the information is viral.  Tweeting and retweeting has proven to be an effective way to get your message out to as many people (followers) as possible.  A great way you can see this happen is through the Massachusetts Agencies, MASSGov does a tremendous job at retweeting as many agencies as possible.  It helps not only get our information out to our followers, and the followers of other agencies, but to those are following MassGov alone.  The social media usage of the Massachusetts Government agencies is, in my opinion, very impressive and above all effective. We’re glad at the Massachusetts Treasury to have a hand in it.

Co-creation, ideation, and other -ations at the federal government level

I had the pleasure of participating on Government 2.0 radio last night, chatting about collaboration, innovation and social media in Government.  One of the most interesting items we discussed was the Federal Agency Ideascale Dashboard, which you should check out regardless of your interest in government 2.0 initatives.  Here is why:

• This is a great example of an ideation platform in action.  If the Federal Government can fire up a platform as robust as this one as quickly as they did what excuse does your business or State/Local agency have for not doing the same?
• The platform provides a good overview of which agencies are participating.  Agencies like Veterans Affairs and NASA are generating a lot of activity while other agencies like SBA and USAID are not generating much discussion.
• This ideation platform will ultimately lead to co-creation of value between government agencies and the citizens they support.   This is similar to the way HP works with its customers, through support communities, to create new product offerings and features.  It works.

What is being done well?

• The White House has done an excellent job of putting a sense of urgency to this initiative.  Without this sense of urgency it is unlikely much would have been accomplished. 
• The dashboard provides a clear graphical indicator, right at the top of the page, of the metrics being used: ideas,  votes, comments.  This concept should be applied to any agency or business.
• The goals from the executive level have been combined with the passion and vision of those at all levels.  The dashboard, the ideation platform, none of this was explicitly called for in the open government directive.  Give your teams a clear understanding of the goal, the strategic framework within which they are allowed to play, then let them execute.  Let your teams be creative and excel.

How should this be improved upon?

• This initiative, and any that you will start in your business or agency, can only be successful if you have clearly defined goals.    The White House, as the executive team, must step back and better define the goals of these efforts (or better yet push this to the agency level).  Avoid goals like “become more transparent” and “increase engagement”.  These goals sound good but are fuzzy tactics, not goals.  Your goals should be clear, should be measurable, and might focus on increased revenue generation (for businesses) or for increased citizen participation (for agencies).
• Remember to market the initiative. Very few people outside the public sector know about the Federal Dashboard or the Open Government Directive.  This must change.
• Remember that these initiatives, and others like it, require citizen/customer involvement.  The Ideascale platform is a good technology for those web-enabled citizens but there are far too many that are not on the web, not involved through these channels.  When you deliver technology solutions make sure you are meeting your citizens, your customers, where they are, not where you want them to be.

Let me know what you think?  Did you know about this dashboard?  Does your company or agency use any ideation tools?

John

Have a second to help me out by voting for me as one of the top government twits to follow?

Navigating the people-side of your support community

Businesses and agencies often realize a need to add support communities, rather internally focused for training and collaboration or externally focused for communicating with customers and potential customers.  In all cases it is critical to remember the people in your company that will be impacted by this effort. 

Before making your business case

Understand which of your peers will be in  your corner and who will be fighting the idea until the bitter end.  In most organizations there is always some degree of politics and you must  take this into account.  Remember to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  Raise the community concept to gauge the questions and concerns that will arise as part of the approval process.

Most large organizations will need a formal business plan.  You will not win over the executive team with “good feelings” type of arguments, demonstrate the cost and return on the investment.   I have asked a few very large enterprise users if they could have made the business case without traditional number crunching.  Everyone agreed that they would have been unable to get executive and/or board-level agreement without the numbers. 

Your employees

Your employees will likely be excited about participating in the community.  Follow some of these best practices to make sure your employees and your customers have a great experience.

• Provide written policies on what is, and what is not, allowed when using corporate and private accounts.
• Train your team on how to engage.
  • Break down the policies in a way that the employees can gain clarity by asking questions and getting answers.  Do not write a policy without some discussion.
  • Provide some basic public relations training for your top staff and have them train others they work with.  Your communications need to be genuine, however, not everyone’s way of communicating is right for every audience.
  • HP has on-demand training courses that users can take as they have time.  This makes it easier to train everyone  and also enables employees to get regular refresh courses.
• Develop a simple mentoring program.  Best Buy has begun formalizing a program and, while it is too early to see results, I am confident everyone will benefit.
• Tie community participation goals and metrics into your employees goals.  HP, and others, use metrics like number of posts, popularity of posts, customer feedback, etc, for both high-level executive reporting and for employee reviews.

Your community members

Support communities will often cut your operational costs, shifting some level of support away from your employees as the community self-helps itself.  However, you will always have a few bad apples.  How do you deal with these?

• Define a community code of conduct.  Make sure all members understand what is considered appropriate behavior.
  • These norms should focus on keeping language respectful, avoiding personal attacks, etc…  These norms should never limit discussion.
• Let the other members of your community self-regulate the bad apples.  Often times this will bring behavioral norms in line.
• Have your employees use the community code of conduct as a reminder to rope these people in.
• If the bad apples cannot be brought back in-line temporarily suspend them from the community.
• If nothing else works, permanently suspend them from the community.

I was chatting with HP about their community which exceeds 2.5 million visits per month with around 150,000 registered members.  They have permanently banned fewer than 10 users, a tiny fraction of the community users.

What behaviors or best practices would you recommend?

John

I am going to Disney World!

Now that I came in as #1 Top 50 CIO and IT Leaders in the Social Media it seems like a fitting way to celebrate, right?  While I am honored to be included in the list at all, and coming in #1 was very cool, I won’t be heading to Disney.  Your personal/corporate/agency brand building efforts will have plenty of ups and downs and it is important, truly important, that you do not let them impact/change your goals,  your overall strategy.

In the course of the last two weeks I have seen this positive from my efforts and the negative of anonymous attacks from those who disagree with my views.  You will both.  At the end of the day, simply stay true to your core mission. 

Hey, has anyone seen Mickey around here?

John

Talking engagement with Southwest Airlines

If you’re looking for another post on the Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines fiasco I am afraid you will be disappointed.  Kevin has blown it out of proportion, Southwest responded, move on.

Christi Day, of Southwest Airlines, took some time out of her busy schedule to share her thoughts on how her company engages it’s customers.  I hope you find this as useful and interesting as I have.

Q. How does social media fit in at the highest levels of your business?
A. Social Media for us has become incorporated into every announcement, initiative, and crisis.  These channels allow us to keep a pulse on our Customers to see how we can shape our business to better accommodate their needs. 
 

Q. Does it feed into specific corporate goals?
A. Southwest Airlines thrives on being an innovative and maverick business.  We are challenged everyday to provide the best customer service with the highest degree of company pride.  That strategy is easily communicated in our online channels.
 

Q. How do social network initiatives fit?ow does it fit
A. For us, it’s primarily about communication.  Customers want information and they want it quickly.  Gone are the days where a 30-day turnaround for a written letter.  Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and our blog – www.blogsouthwest.com are great resources to provide speedy answers and information to our Customers.  
 

Q. What processes did you put in place to enable going social?
A. Our leaders trust us 100% to be the communicators for Southwest Airlines.  We don’t have a ton of processes or red tape in place every time we want to send a tweet out.  Instead we have processes for overall company messaging.  If we have a particular event, we go through the process of determining the channels we’d like to use, ask the appropriate parties to weigh in and help craft messages, then we report back any successes or learnings.  The approach we have at Southwest is very collaborative and convergent. 
 

Q. What social communication policies have you put in place?
A. Our guidelines for our employees are here:

• If an Employee posts a comment related to Southwest Airlines in a public forum  – we ask for a disclaimer stating opinions are own, and not that of Southwest Airlines Officers, Directors, or Employees.
• Understanding that they are—and will be held—accountable for their comments/videos/posts. In the event that an Employee’s comment/videos/posts violate Southwest policies or are inconsistent with our Leadership Expectations, the Employee will be subject to discipline, up to and including termination.
• Employees must also be aware that every Customer is a reporter/photographer, and their actions can be recorded, written about, or videotaped and quickly distributed all over the Internet.
   

Q. How many people do you have monitoring the social channels today?
A. We encourage all employees to monitor online channels and alert us if they see anything alarming.  We have a Social Media Council at Southwest. These folks are responsible for various online communication channels.  The Council is comprised of passionate Social Media gurus plucked from different departments throughout the company.   The Council is responsible for pushing the Social Media strategy forward for Southwest.  We meet monthly to share best practices, brainstorm, benchmark etc.   We also have established spokespeople for each channel.
 

Q. What tools are being used today? How did you go about tool selection?
A. We use tools like CoTweet, Tweetdeck, Radian 6, Vocus, to monitor and measure online content.  We are always on the hunt for new tools that we could add to our belt.