Page 241 - Social Media Marketing

JetBlue advocates. The challenge for JetBlue going forward will be to scale its current 219
customer experience. Here again, social technology (used to connect employees and
passengers to drive service innovation) comes into play. The combination of active ■ ╇ E ngagement as a B usiness Activity
listening—understanding what is happening (positive or negative) right now, along
with collaborative systems that facilitate ideation and innovation inside of JetBlue as it
grows—are all part of what defines a social business.

If you’re wondering about how powerful the combination of operations and
marketing really is and about the kinds of conversations this kind of alignment can
generate, go to Twitter and search “JetBlue T5.” Figure€8.5 shows the typical results.
My favorites? From FlyBoyVancouver comes “T5, of course!” in response to the
posted question “What is the best airline terminal in the world?” right along with
CrazyLoud1’s “It’s 80s night at T5!” Kind of makes you want to Fly JetBlue to New
York, doesn’t it? That’s not a coincidence. It’s by business and experience design.

Connect Customers to Employees

In the previous section, I covered three scenarios: One past (St. Louis, hopefully having
since rehearsed for the next weather event), one present (the ongoing business benefit of
JetBlue’s T5 investment in social business), and one future (the actual implementation
of the new “3-hour” rule). It will be interesting to see which airlines simply pass the
buck to customers—creating more delays, while simultaneously claiming better on-
time performance—and which ones will stick up for their customers and sort out a bet-
ter and perhaps completely new boarding-to-take-off procedure when lengthy delays
are likely.

The summary idea is this: Higher forms of engagement, built on the building-
block processes for realizing a social business and then powered by collaboration, offer
ways to bring customers and constituents back into alignment with the business and its
employees. Social technologies provide a way to return a sense of control—in an appro-
priate manner that is consistent with the norms of your business or organization—that
invites collaboration. In the case of the airlines, what sorts of solutions might passen-
gers come up with if only they were given the chance?

This is where ideation and similar platforms enter the picture. The ideation plat-
forms, as they are commonly called, make it very easy for interested people across a
variety of applications—products, services, legislation, policies, and more—to not only
contribute ideas but to curate the contributions of others. This has two direct benefits
to business and/or the operation of an organization.

First, it encourages involvement, which in turn drives participative collabora-
tion. Second, it provides a venue for discussing why not all ideas can be implemented,
or can only be implemented in the future. In other words, it provides a venue that rees-
tablishes your control of your brand, product, or service by recognizing that your cus-
tomers or constituents have a voice in it. They get to ideate, and you get to moderate.