The benefits and challenges of social messaging
Social messaging is the perfect way for airlines to engage with passengers when time is short.
The world’s three most popular social messaging platforms (WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger*) have more than four billion combined monthly users. 100 billion messages are sent via WhatsApp alone every day.
*Source: Statista
Why has social messaging become so popular for businesses?
- It allows two-way conversations that include rich content such as boarding passes and QR codes.
- It makes it easy to reach a large proportion of customers via channels they use every day and are comfortable with.
- You can integrate with chatbots to enable quick, personalised responses without labour costs.
- Not as many passengers download an airline’s app as you may think.
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In 2021, United Airlines carried 69.4 million passengers, but only 37 million (53%) had the United app.
Source: United Airlines
What must airlines consider to maximise the potential of social media messaging?
- Research which channels your customers are using – bear in mind this will differ by region and will change over time: This isn’t a “once and done” project.
- Does a channel require users to opt-in to receive messages from you?
- Are you limited by what or how much information you can include?
- The cost of sending or replying to messages vs. how much it costs to handle queries manually via the contact centre and airport.
*Calculated as average salary of a contact centre agent or airport staff divided by 250 working days per year and 100 interactions per day ** Average cost of sending a WhatsApp message to UK, North America, France and Mexico
