Blacktype

According to this nma article Ryanair, the budget airline are to launch an online travel community as they make their first steps into the world of social media.

What took them so long? I hear you say – well perhaps the fact that they have one of the worst customer service attitudes in the airline industry. I hope they have someone who gets social media heading this up, or they could be zooming straight into another PR disaster.

They have decided not to engage on third party sites such as twitter because “We don’t have people sitting around to answer questions. With social media you get any and every query and a lot of rubbish, like people asking if they can bring a 10kg bag, which of course you can. The information is there on our site.” Well Stephen McNamara, Ryanair spokesman, I would suggest if you are constantly getting asked the same question on social media, then perhaps your website isn’t clear enough for your customers.

Don’t forget last year when another spokesperson gave a classic quote regarding a blog post about the airline “It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers.”

I will sit back & watch with interest how they cope with hearing from disgruntled Ryanair customers on their own website!

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Apologies once again for slack blog updates, between moving www.blacktypegroup.com over to a new hosting platform & 3 trade shows on the trot, all spare time has been spent sleeping!
Recently I attended (& exhibited at) BETA International, the equestrian & country trade fair. The majority of big manufacturers sponsor high profile riders. Sometimes the ROI is obvious, such as the Zara Philips – Musto partnership, where she appears in their advertising & is now fronting her own signature collection.

However in the majority of sponsorship cases I don’t believe the riders deliver value for money. A big name rider will typically use a brands products, feature in print ads, carry the company logo on the horses’ saddlecloth & show rugs as well as the horse lorry & riders website. In terms of active engagement with the product buying public, they don’t do much.

In contrast, there is an army of social media savvy teens, some of who are set to be the pro-riders of tomorrow. Through my wholesale company I regularly receive professionally written sponsorship packs, directing me to slick websites, all put together by these teens. They are regularly blogging, facebooking & building a following on forums.

One of these young riders is Jonny Betteridge & you can find out more about him on his website here http://www.jcbeventing.com/ . I first met Jonny when I kept a horse at the same livery yard as him. I’m a fan of his facebook page for JCB eventing, which Jonny regularly updates. A week before BETA, he posted about a new sponsorship he has gained with Cool Horse Socks. Curious about a new company in the equestrian industry I went & had a look at their website & subsequently visited their trade stand at BETA. I don’t know if Cool Horse ran any print ads or what other marketing activities are planned, but the sponsorship of Jonny did what all sponsorship should do – raised awareness of the brand & Jonny did it by engaging directly with the equine community using social media tools. The other great thing about the teen army apart from their social media skills, is that they are a lot cheaper to sponsor than Zara!

Whilst the above scenario is based in the equestrian industry, the lessons can be applied to any business. Social media has changed the influencers – it’s no longer all about the mainstream media or big name stars endorsing your product. Find out who influences your sector at grass roots level & get your product in their hands.

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I spent the weekend in London for a trade show & popped over to Harrods on the Saturday night to have a look at their saddlery department. On my way out I decided to treat myself to some new Chanel nail varnish & wow was I impressed. Not by the nail varnish, which is always divine, but by the faultless customer service from the girl on the Chanel counter. I wasn’t making a big purchase and I’m not a regular customer but her service was faultless & really want above & beyond what was expected. From polite advice & upselling, to giving me a direct contact telephone number if I had any queries it was a masterclass in customer facing service.

So to Ms L Willard of the Chanel counter, you are a total superstar, I hope your bosses value you & if anyone is thinking about sending their employees on a customer service training course, don’t bother, pack them off to the cosmetics hall at Harrods!

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