KLM Lets The Customer Decide…

…and stops servicing on LinkedIn

KLM wants to be where the customer is. This is the basis of our social media servicing strategy and of what we have been doing since we started with social servicing in the first place. It is not us that decide where we should offer servicing, it is the customer that decides. And now, this same customer shows us that it not necessary anymore to offer service on LinkedIn.

About three and a half years ago, KLM opened up servicing on LinkedIn. At that time we noticed that our frequent travellers were active on LinkedIn and not so much on the other social channels where we offered servicing, like Facebook and Twitter. As we have always wanted to be where our customers are, it was a logic step to offer these customers the opportunity to ask questions on LinkedIn, their favorite social channel.

A lot has happened since then and the social landscape has changed significantly

At this moment over 80% of our social servicing volume is handled via Messenger and WhatsApp. We believe this underlines the fact that people rather turn to chat apps, like Messenger and WhatsApp, to ask us a question as they prefer a personal conversation with a brand. On the other hand, we have seen a decline of questions on LinkedIn. Where we used to get a couple of hundred questions a week, KLM received only 50 questions via this channel last week. This decline seems to be running parallel to the introduction of KLM servicing on Messenger and WhatsApp.

Secondly our dedicated social servicing team has become the largest in the world, with over 250 agents, that offer 24/7 service in 9 languages on the Facebook wall, Messenger, Twitter, WhatsApp, WeChat in China and KakaoTalk in Korea. The team receives around 130.000 mentions on a weekly basis, resulting into 30.000 cases which are questions that need an answer from KLM, like voluntary rebooking or an upgrade. These volumes keep on growing, and have exploded since KLM introduced servicing and flight info via Messenger and – since a couple of weeks – also via a WhatsApp verified account. To make sure that we offer the best service on all platforms where we are present we need to make choices and only focus on those platforms that most of our customers prefer.

It is the customer that decides. That’s why we have decided to stop offering service on LinkedIn as of 1 December 2017. From that moment on, our servicing agent Sophie Bakker, who took care of answering all LinkedIn questions will move to one of our other servicing platforms and start answering questions up there. KLM will be available for all questions on WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, WeChat and KakaoTalk. Because that’s where the customer is, when it concerns servicing.