Social Media Case Study: The Domestic Airline Industry in India

Social media has transformed the customer into a powerful entity. No longer does one need to call the customer service to express opinions or share concerns. The tendency of content on social media to spread at a rapid rate can easily build or tarnish the reputation of a brand. This is the single most important reason why brands have started to monitor conversations and manage their online reputations.

The domestic airline industry in India is growing at a healthy rate of 12% annually, and serves 2% of the world's population (an extremely high figure). Therefore, it becomes necessary to understand what the customers want and what their concerns are. This can not only help in better customer service, but also increases brand fidelity.

We have monitored and analyzed conversations for the Top 7 domestic air carriers in India to understand how they fare for different service types and departments, according to their customers. Using keywords that are most relevant to these carriers, we conducted a search of conversations on social media at the end of December 2011 and beginning of January 2012. We classified each relevant conversation into 6 verticals ' Booking and Customer Service, General Feedback, Ground/Airport Service, Onboard Service, Punctuality, and Corporate (table shown in the Annexure), analyzed the output results, and judged the sentiment of each conversation. The carriers considered for this study are Air India, Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways, GoAir, Indigo Airlines, JetLite, and SpiceJet.

Findings

Share of Voice: Air India and Kingfisher Airlines were found to be the two most prominent domestic carriers on social media, accounting for 72% of the total volume of results. Jet Airways and Indigo Airlines came in at the third and fourth positions respectively. JetLite and SpiceJet were found in a very low number of results (approximately 3%).

The SWL Index: We have derived the Social Wavelength Index (SWL Index) to calculate the sentiment share for each carrier with respect to the airlines industry. It is calculated as explained below:

SWL Index = ( ( BPOS + BNEU ) / ( IPOS + INEU ) ) ' ( BNEG / INEG )

Where:

BPOS: Positive conversations for the Brand

BNEG: Negative conversations for the Brand

INEU: Neutral conversations for the Brand

Delhi had a lesser (52%) proportion of negative conversations.

Punctual Airlines

Addition of new flights

Nominal pricing and tariffs

Positive onboard ambience

Faster turnaround times

High prices

Cancelled flights

Poor mechanism of notifications for delayed flights

Poor ground services

Issues related to check-ins and baggage

Costly food

Study executed by Social Wavelength