Conversocial’s 2018 Airline Benchmark Report finds airlines turning to channel for customer service challenges
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New benchmark study shows most responsive airlines on social
Gulf carriers are the most responsive among many of the world’s leading carriers in Europe, the Middle east and the US.
Conversocial’s 2018 Airline Benchmark Report has found the overall industry responsiveness has increased on last year as airlines turn to social to for customer service challenges.
The industry average score was 25.23%, up from 21% last year based on the volume and timeliness of responses carrier made on social platforms.
A less marked variance was found among the 10 US carriers analysed compared to the EMEA carriers. Average responsiveness of the US carriers was 22.39% while for the EMEA airlines it was 28.07%.
However the EMEA performance was bolstered by three Middle Eastern carriers; Etihad, Emirates and Qatar Airways, which all achieved scores above 50%.
The worst performing airline in EMEA was Lufthansa ahead of easyJet, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, Icelandair, Ryanair and Finnair.
In the US, top of the pile was AmericanAir with a 32.6% score, Delta, Southwest Air and Virgin America.
All 10 US airlines, compared to six out of 10 EMEA, hit the industry benchmark of response speed of under an hour.
The worst mean response time in the US was recorded by United (one hour 34 minutes) and in EMEA Finnair (five hours 33 minutes).
The average mean response time in the US was found to be 20 minutes and one second, while in EMEA it was a much higher one hour and 41 minutes.
On average the EMEA airlines delivered three responses per hour significantly behind their US counterparts on 11.
North American airlines also saw 66% more direct @ mentions on social than the 10 EMEA c carriers included in the study.
Conversocial says: “Being responsive is an important first step to full issue resolution, however, speed of response is still a key driver of customer satisfaction.
“Even when an issue cannot be resolved immediately, it’s important that a service representative shows the customer, and everyone who might see the interaction, that the company has heard them and is working on a solution.”
