Southwest Airlines introduces State-of-the-Art Listening Center!

[AshleyMainz]

Southwest Airlines has long been regarded as a pioneer in the social media space, and our Social Media Team has been recognized in many ways for embracing social technologies. As we continue to evolve as a leading social business, we continue to look for new and innovative ways to connect with our Customers. The new, state-of-the-art Listening Center symbolizes our commitment to listening to our Customers, using real-time feedback to make smarter business decisions. Located at our Headquarters in Dallas, the Listening Center is the first of its kind in the domestic airline industry. It serves as our nerve center, integrating traditional media, social media, and operational data to allow various functions to move quickly and efficiently from insights to action. The Listening Center is staffed seven days a week with Employees from our Customer Relations, Communication, and Marketing departments. The Employees are available around the clock to answer questions, engage with Customers, and share feedback across the organization to enhance the Customer experience. The Listening Center works closely with the Network Operations Control center (NOC), and has staffed a satellite Listening Center within the NOC to relay real-time feedback from Customers as operational challenges arise. The satellite Listening Center allows Employees on the Social Media Team to proactively communicate with Customers as operational updates become available. One example occurred a few days before the 2014 Memorial Day travel weekend, when the Listening Center identified unusually long lines building at several airports by listening to Customer comments on our social media channels. Through close coordination with the NOC, the Social Media Team was able to proactively communicate suggested airport arrival times to Customers via our social media channels to help alleviate stress and airport congestion. If you haven’t already, we invite you to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or Pinterest. Tell us what’s on your mind. We’re listening!

[pyramidsocial]

Doyour listening center support team members (employees) that answer your social media accounts to handle customer questions, complaints, etc; go through the same training that customer service representatives or sales employees of Southwest Airlines; or are they only limited in their training to the actual handling (or is it limited to just listening) to social media.

Have you tried managed social media services provided by companies like PyramidSocial in New York? (http://pyramidsocial.com), or do you only have in-house support for your social media accounts?  What tends to work better?