Forget About Special: Behind the United, American Airlines Social Customer Care Struggles

Selfishness, though not an admirable trait, is an unavoidably human one. No matter how charitable and societally-conscious they might be in theory, in practice, virtually all people want the best possible experiences for themselves.

That reality only becomes more prominent—and more justified—when individuals are paying for that self-aggrandizing experience. In an "age of the customer" that reminds individuals they are always in the right and should always be the sole driver of an organization’s activity, customers are only being logical for wanting the business world to revolve around their needs.

In this "age of the customer," transactions are not about exchanging money for goods but about paying for personalized treatment that affirms one’s self worth.

And as true as that is of any business relationship between an organization and a customer, it becomes even more important when the specific customer’s sense of self-worth is shared by a contingent of other past, present and potential customers.

In a pair of failed social customer care engagements, airlines United and American failed to provide service that would be viewed as personalized and customer-centric by anyone, let alone people whose experiences enjoy a higher-profile than those of the typical customer.

American - Just "Blowin’ Smoke"

Last month, rising country music star Kacey Musgraves ("Merry Go Round") Tweeted her frustration with American Airlines to more than 70,000 followers, noting that a suspect "weather" delay prevented her from attending a Dave Chappelle comedy show in Nashville.

Despite clarifying the personal ramifications of the bad experience and eliciting re-Tweets and supportive comments from her followers, Musgraves’ initial Tweet went without any sort of reply from American Airlines, let alone a personalized one. It took a second Tweet with a specific demand for compensation ("AmericanAir I feel shorted on many levels. My time cant be replaced but Im sure something can be done to help compensate. What can you do?") to garner a response from the airline, and even then, the company responded with a stock comment (follow and DM the flight record for assistance in rebooking) rather than anything of specific relevance to the situation.

As the singer-songwriter’s fans continued Tweeting their support and concern for whether the situation was properly rectified, American would only respond with either vague assurances that it reached out to the customer or tone-deaf statements of no connection to specific user inquiries. At no point did American publicly confirm that it valued Musgraves the way she—and her fanbase—felt she deserved to be valued.

For as disappointing as American’s service appeared, given that Musgraves has a fairly modest following by celebrity standards, the airline’s reputation likely suffered less damage than it should—or could—have. United, however, cannot say the same.

United – Not Best in the World

One would assume the airline responsible for fueling "United Breaks Guitars" would immensely understand the importance of social customer care. And to its credit, United does seem far more responsive on social media than many top brands.

Unfortunately, it has sorely missed the mark in serving popular WWE wrestler CM Punk, whose nearly 2 million followers are depictive not only of a large fanbase but an immensely-passionate one.

Over the past few weeks, Punk, who due to the nature of his job travels quite frequently, has repeatedly Tweeted about issues with United, which include flight delays, missing crew members and rude flight attendants. Despite receiving re-Tweets and Tweets of commiseration from his followers, the wrestler never seemed to receive an effective, personalized, "human" message from the airline.

Frustrated with the stock replies, Punk even ended up Tweeting, "Aaaaahaha. @united just delayed us until 7:30 now. Follow you and DM you? No thanks. Get your act together."

Even then, United could not break from its robotic habits, simply responding, "We're sure our airport team is doing all possible to have you on your way."

Each complaint from the wrestler, which involved a high-profile customer’s documentation of his woes and United’s failure to adequately rectify those issues, contributed further damage to the airline’s reputation. But none carried the damning impact of Punk’s July 21 Tweet.

"If I were to tell y'all that I'm delayed because, ‘we are looking for another crew member’. Which airline would you guess I am on," asked the popular pro wrestler.

Given his public frustration with United, the answer was obvious. And given the inviting, open-ended nature of the question, hundreds of fans replied with that answer, significantly amplifying the reach of Punk’s complaint.

Amplifying the effect even further was the fact that the wrestler re-Tweeted some of those who answered "United." Believing they, too, could receive a re-Tweet from such a well-known entertainer, others had additional motivation to join the discussion.

Perhaps due to weak social monitoring or perhaps due to frustration with the wrestler, United Airlines did not offer an initial response (searches, in fact, do not indicate the airline ever responded) to the situation. Millions were now exposed to hundreds of assertions that when one thinks of a bad airline experience, he thinks of United Airlines.

With Punk’s opposition to United firmly established, fans have begun incorporating United jokes into their correspondence to the wrestler. When he, during Monday’s WWE RAW show, said that he would fly to beat up rival Paul Heyman who was not present at the live show, fans Tweeted comments like:

@CMPunk You have a better chance of getting to where Heyman is via satellite by walking to kick his ass than go by United

@CMPunk said he would fly to get to Heyman, then received a text update saying that flight had been delayed #United

@CMPunk if your gonna fly to @HeymanHustle, don't take @united -- even heyman will have time to run away.

Behind Special Treatment

In the aforementioned examples, American and United opted not to give special service to celebrities. To those frustrated by how society worships entertainers, there is likely some justice in knowing that even famous pro wrestlers and singers are subject to the same customer experience issues that affect normal people.

But such people are urged to consider the alternative perspective: not even famous pro wrestlers and singers receive quality customer experiences from businesses. If businesses cannot be bothered to treat high-profile, revered customers like they are special, why should one expect them to treat Joe Everyman like a king? The idea that every customer is important and deserving of an elite experience becomes even harder to believe.

While a jaded customer might not have believed that anyway, even he might lose some faith based on how American and United failed in these situations. Perhaps not sold on business’ warm-hearted customer centricity, pessimistic individuals can at least appreciate business’ incentive to drive favorable publicity.

In fact, one does not even have to be an inherently-jaded person to wonder whether famous social media stories—such as Morton’s delivering a steak to an influential blogger who had just landed at the airport—were driven as much by marketing as they were customer service. The assertion is simply logical.

Knowing interactions with Kacey Musgraves and CM Punk come with vast platforms for demonstrating their competency, the two airlines could have gained significant publicity and notoriety for producing creative, personalized solutions for the two customers.

If American, for instance, had offered to fly Musgraves to the site of another Dave Chappelle show, it would have garnered significant attention for its customer-centricity. If United, for instance, had comically referenced CM Punk’s wrestling character and storyline in its responses, it would have shown that it gets its customer base.

Instead, it laughed in the face of the vast marketing platform, and chose instead to deal with the repercussions of publicly dissatisfying its customers. The pressure social media is supposed to bring to organizations was not enough to motivate the American and United customer service teams.

By demonstrating that immunity to pressure in such high-profile situations, the two airlines certainly discouraged those who cannot rally hundreds from using social media to voice complaints. While the net result might be less social complaint volume for American and United, it also results in less opportunities to engage customers.

And it represents yet another service channel in which big businesses are failing to prove that every customer is worthy of a special experience.