My unsolicited social-media advice for Continental Airlines

At 13:34 EST yesterday, I ranted in a post that Continental Airlines’ social media response to the Aug. 8 Rochester, Minn., tarmac incident, in which passengers on Continental Express flight 2816 were marooned for almost six hours overnight on board the aircraft, was lame.

Within 30 minutes, without referencing the Tnooz post or providing any context that the U.S. Dept. of Transportation had just tagged the airline and two others carriers with precedent-setting fines, Continental tweeted: “We continue to work with our partners & others to reinforce our Customer First commitments. We will comply with DOT’s consent order.”

What does this impersonal, legalistic tweet, brimming with marketing-speak, actually tell Continental customers about the airline’s approach to customer service and passenger rights?

Not much.

Sorry Continental, but your tweet was inadequate and you are missing out on an oppportunity.

Continental’s tack so far has been part of the same old-school approach the airline took Aug. 21 when, in response to the initial findings of the DOT investigation, Continental merely tweeted a link to a press release, in which Continental — rightly or wrongly — pinned most of the blame for the “unacceptable” incident on Delta subsidiary Mesaba Airlines, which was in charge of ground operations at the airport for the Continental Express flight.

So, let’s return to the cave man era, Feb. 19, 2007,  when Twitter was just getting going and then JetBlue CEO David Neeleman gave a mea culpa on YouTube, assuring the airline’s customers that the hundreds of flight cancellations that the inadequately prepared carrier made in the deep freeze of that Winter would not be repeated.

That YouTube video sort of jump-started JetBlue’s Twitter participation, and almost 1.5 million followers later, JetBlue’s social-media efforts are a well-documented success story.

The Continental Express tarmac debacle in Rochester, Minn., doesn’t rise to the level of JetBlue’s more than 1,100 cancelled flights around Valentine’s Day 2007, but Continental should seize the moment anyway and talk directly to its customers on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and any other outlet of its choosing about how the airline is addressing such incidents.

One of the main things Continental should do is humanize itself. OK, Continental is an airline, a commercial entity, but I’ve flown the airline and I know real people actually work there.

Sure, perhaps there may be legal or regulatory reasons not to do so — or maybe Continental doesn’t want to draw undue attention to the tarmac incident — buy why not have CEO Larry Kellner — or another employee — do a video or blog post coming clean about the incident.

It could start something like this:

“Hi, this is Larry Kellner, the CEO of Continental Airlines. A lot of you may have heard about our passengers who were stranded overnight on board a Continental Express flight in Rochester, Minn. I want to let you know that this was a complicated situation, involving three airlines, so not everything was under our control. But, our response that morning definitely fell short of our promises and commitments. Frankly, we blew it. And, we pledge that this sort of thing will never happen again.”

He can let people know that Continental will pay the fine, refunded the full fares to the waylaid passengers, and wasn’t up to the task of policing the operations of partner airlines, in this case ExpressJet Airlines, which was operating the Continental Express flight. Kellner might outline specific steps Continental is taking to revamp its procedures.

Or another employee might document remedial steps, if any, which may have been put in place.

Continental could take its customers behind the scenes, explain what kinds of communications the airline received that night from partner ExpressJet, and outline to travelers how Continental would handle a similar incident dfifferently the next time.

And, Continental could tweet about the incident, and enter into a dialogue with the airline’s customers, including those stranded on the Continental Express flight. Perhaps Continental actually could learn a thing or two about such incidents from its passengers.

It’s too bad that use of smartphones are banned in most tarmac situations. Otherwise, Twitter would be an ideal means to enable passengers to inform customer service if they find themselves stuck on a tarmac on a Continental flight for an excessive amount of time.

Can you imagine the goodwill that the Continental brand would engender if customer service intervened and was able to resolve the delay?

Another thing that Continental and other companies should do on Twitter — and Continental has sometimes been guilty of this in its short tenure on Twitter — is ensure that they don’t let complaints or suggestions go unanswered.

If companies are going to be active in social media, then be active and don’t let anything slide.

Related posts:

1. Social media gap: DOT fines airlines on tarmac delay — Continental Airlines what say you?
2. Thumbs down for United Airlines’ Tilton, thumbs up for Continental’s Kellner
3. American Airlines launches social-media website, airlines have Twitter issues
4. Royal Caribbean sets social media adrift with Oasis of the Seas crossing
5. Is the Southwest social media strategy super awesome or just common sense?