Using Twitter to resolve holiday complaints
By Darren Cronian on Saturday, October 15th, 2011

I don’t like it when consumers are not treated fairly, so I will help out any consumer who I feel has been let down by a company. This week I received an email regarding a flight booking issue, where the consumer, admitted their mistake of choosing ‘miss’ instead of ‘mr’ while booking flight and accommodation.

Using Twitter to resolve holiday complaints

Simple error led to frustration

Initially, the passenger was asked to cancel the original flight, costing £519 and told to rebook, which would cost an additional £617. When the customer first contacted Travel Republic, a request to BMI was escalated and they were told that the airline would not make an exception to their policy.

Using social media to deal with complaints

I approached both companies on Twitter and the whole experience was quite interesting. BMI simply asked me to email someone, which I didn’t find very useful – whereas Travel Republic, asked for more information, investigated the complaint on my behalf and kept both the customer and myself up-to-date.

BMI need to relook at their policy

The passenger ended up just paying a £25 admin fee, and saved nearly £600! I am glad common sense prevailed, but, I have to ask why this couldn’t have been done in the first place. It isn’t as if the forename or surname was spelt incorrectly, it was an obvious mistake that should have been picked up. I wonder how many other BMI passengers have cancelled their flight and rebooked by making the same simple mistake?

I think it is time for the airline to relook at their policy.

Tips for consumers using Twitter

Social networks like Twitter are a good way to communicate with companies – ideally, you should contact the company via telephone or email initially, but, if this line of communication fails then try searching on Twitter to see if the company have an account and if it is active. I wrote a beginners guide to Twitter which is worth a read.

Remember to be polite, and do not provide any personal details publically. Just inform them that you have a complaint, and could they follow you so you can send more information via Direct Message. Do not be surprised if the company doesn’t respond – many organisations have signed up to Twitter because it is ‘cool’ and then forget to manage their account.

Your thoughts on this holiday issue

Have you had a similar issue? Have you had a good experience using Twitter for solving your travel complaint? Is Twitter a good tool to resolve holiday complaints? Feel free to add your comments in the section below.


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20 responses to “Using Twitter to resolve holiday complaints”

Mosh | 15 October, 2011 at 3:11 pm

I’ve been having problems with mobile network Three in the UK (I’ll spare you the details). Emails to their “help” and then “complaint” addressed were unanswered and by the time I called staff at the help centre, I was only interested in cancelling my account and writing to the Managing Director.

They refused to supply me with his name or an address, despite a company address being a matter of public record if I have to go digging.

It turns out they’ve recently started making use of the Twitter accounts they set up some months ago and – after a couple of days, an ignored Tweet and a follow up to my tweet complaining about the ignored one – they gave me the guy’s name. I still had to go digging for the address, though, as they’d not provide it.

The benefit of Twitter is it’s public. If you’re complaining, then your complaint is visible to the world. They *have* to be seen to be dealing with it efficiently and effectively.

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Dale | 16 October, 2011 at 9:49 pm

A question I can’t help asking is, would the company have acted in the same way if the customer had confronted them on Twitter? I suspect not.

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Becca | 16 October, 2011 at 9:50 pm

What is your name on Twitter? :)

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Darren Cronian | 16 October, 2011 at 10:01 pm

Hi Dale,

Thanks for commenting. I would hope that any company that is on Twitter would engage with every consumer. Otherwise, what is the point of using social networks in the first place.

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Darren Cronian | 16 October, 2011 at 10:02 pm

Hi Becca,

I think Mosh’s twitter is @mosh. You can follow me on @travelrants

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Mosh | 16 October, 2011 at 10:28 pm

Busted! Not a hard one to figure out ;)

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Murray Harrold | 16 October, 2011 at 11:06 pm

Interesting, this. There was an old management theory called “Fayol’s Gangplanks” which basically refers to interaction across other than normal channels – twitter (and other social media) are a super-modern version of this – the use of social media enables you to communicate across recognised company channels, almost to the extent of personalising what can be faceless corporations. The use of social media makes many firms just that – more “social”. Some firms get it, others don’t, however. BMI do get it, so do British Airways at present – but many simply don’t get it at all. For BMI and BA, I am sure their approach is doing them a power of good.

The other side of this coin is a firm can see directly how many people follow you – and who those people are… So, if you complain about someone or something on twitter, no doubt a firm or individual will review how many followers you have. I have no idea (maybe there is some research out there) as to how many followers you have to have before people need to sit up and take notice, though certainly you have to consider how many may retweet your “issue” hence the actual number of followers may be relatively small.

Forget not that twitter etc can be useful to accentuate the positive as well. For example, I have matters (not complaints) that have needed an airline’s attention and have found that the response from twitter was/ is quicker and more efficient than calling.

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Azeem Ahmed | 17 October, 2011 at 4:00 am

Do they really worry taking consumer complaints through twitter? I thought it was just for establishing their social media or what you call Online presence. Still contacting them through their help desk email or telephone is better option since if they aren’t really active and fast to respond through Social media websites, you may face delay and the delay could worsen things out, who knows!

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Paul Bennett | 17 October, 2011 at 11:50 am

At our travel company, we view Twitter as equal to, if superior to, telephone for customer interaction. For one, we’re always monitoring as a team. Two, it can help us track the conversation as it develops. And, since we’re very customer-centric anyway we appreciate the transparency as a marketing benefit. Twitter is about much more than simple push branding.

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Nick | 17 October, 2011 at 3:27 pm

The main problem with Twitter/Facebook is the bigger the company the more chance it is run by PR agency/department (hence request to e-mail).

Smaller company’s are able to watch these and respond to customer comments as we see whats being said.

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Henry Williams | 18 October, 2011 at 4:22 pm

this is a god way to use twitter i think you can get faster replies by complaining over social media

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Sameer | 19 October, 2011 at 2:19 pm

“Remember to be polite, and do not provide any personal details publically.”

People need to keep this point in mind while posting or complaining about companies. Recently here in India, Vodafone has sued a customer for posts on his Facebook wall that criticized the company, although the charges were dropped later. :|

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Holly Jenkins | 25 October, 2011 at 2:42 am

This is such a great idea! I feel like a lot of travel companies (especially online booking sites) don’t take a lot of responsibility for resolving complaints. I have said before how nice it would be to have a way to publicize their lack of response. Thanks for the idea to use twitter!

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Cee | 25 October, 2011 at 10:39 pm

Why on earth do we have to specify gender and marital status anyway? I often come across a choice of Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss/… I’m a married woman but choose Ms. because I have to pick one. It’s none of their business and as long as I’m a person it shouldn’t matter whether I’m a man or a woman and certainly not whether I’m married or not. Can’t believe that they would even charge to change, I think I would have left it as is!

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Darren Cronian | 26 October, 2011 at 12:32 pm

Hi Cee,

Thanks for the comment. I agree with you, but it is a risk not correcting the ticket – the airline could stop them from flying that would be dreadful if you had spent all of your hard earnt money saving up.

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Darren Cronian | 26 October, 2011 at 12:33 pm

Interesting comment Paul. I’m always interested to hear how companies use social media. Do you think you get a return in time/investment from social media, or does that not come into the equation when like you say, it is important to track and monitor conversations.

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Paul Bennett | 26 October, 2011 at 2:06 pm

We definitely look at the cost of social media, which is mostly time. We find that it doesn’t cost that much. You can get equivalent impact from a 140-character (or less!) tweet than you can from a 45-minute telephone conversation. Part of the cost, admittedly, is training: even many 20-somethings still have a paradigm shift when it comes to communicating by tweet versus the old fashioned telephone. So, we spend time/money on that. But, it’s like any shift: You’re either onboard or left behind. Personally, I always try to sort any customer issue I have with a company through Twitter first. It’s quicker for me, as the customer. Business owners need to understand that.

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Oli | 10 November, 2011 at 11:38 am

We definitely experience great results from Twitter at our company. Although saying that we’re just 2 people so it’s easy to let people know who they’re talking to. The main issue with large corporate tweeters (or a large proportion of) is simply that they keep their corporate straight line approach when engaging in what should be a more ‘casual’ first name basis dialogue.

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jeff leaman | 7 December, 2011 at 5:13 pm

I made a complaint to First Choice/Thompson Hollidays. They completely ignored me, never even bothered to acknowledge my email. So I wrote to ABTA. what waste of space they are, they couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge me. I then wrote to Travel watch, at least they phoned me back, only to tell me that if I wrote directly to ABTA by post ( they gave me the address) I would receive a complaints form which would need a law degree to understand, then I would be asked to pay £120 up front. Then a sollicitor wopuld then take on the case for the Holliday firm, and I would lose my complaint hands down and I would be handed a bill to pay for their costs. So let me tell you, if you think ABTA will look after you think again. They are only interested in looking after their paymasters the holliday companies

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Nick | 13 December, 2011 at 9:46 am

Jeff Leaman

TUI does not have an e-mail for customer service.

The TUI website, brochure and in resort paperwork it gives you an address to write to them at, as well as a telephone number. http://www.thomson.co.uk/editorial/faqs/how-to-contact-thomson/complaints.html

Most Tour Operators do not use e-mail due to it not being legal, the small percent that do will follow up e-mail by letter. (Something I think all should do).

If you have a problem with understanding ABTA’s paper work on how to make a compliant or guide to aberration there is a telephone number for you to contact printed on the paperwork.

Quick guide how to make a complaint to an ABTA tour operator

(if you book via a travel agent, use them as they will give better advice and may be able to make things go faster)

1. Write and post a letter to the Tour Operator, ABTA states they have 28 days to reply, but must confirm receipt of your letter in 14.
2. If unhappy with the Tour Operators response write to them again.
3. Then contact ABTA, which can be done via there website. If you have any problems call them on number provided.

ABTA does run a helpline if you need it and this can be found on there website.

Please remember you can only complain about something you booked, the majority of complaints received are about other things. (Weather, local trips, food, people, beach, bus services etc.)

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