Tale of the Tiger: Customer Service

Meeting audience needs

If one reads the article Social media and human need satisfaction: Implications for social media marketing, one might easily conclude that paid marketing on social media platforms is rather useless. People visit and engage with social media to meet fundamental needs, chief of which is feeling or establishing a connection of some sort (Zhu & Chen, 2015). Indeed, it seems reasonable to expect real stories shared organically to fare better, have a farther reach, and resonate with people on an emotional level.

The Tampa International Airport (TIA) did that with their handling of story of a young boy and his lost stuffed tiger. At the most basic level this story is about the airport bringing the customer to life during customer service experience. If that wasn’t enough, they also gave the airport itself human qualities. So often people gripe about how “the airport lost my luggage.” TIA showed its audience the airport  is made of people, and gave faces to an often faceless business.

Social and consumer experience

Tampa international airport did well understanding the natural interests of both its existing audience and the general social media population. They chose a platform, Facebook, as the creative outlet, which is well-suited for storytelling. Further, they understood a consumer experience relies on two parties, and they did a great job of including photos of TIA employees in various capacities, giving the user something visual to relate to.

Another smart way they addressed the user experience lies in the fact they were able to successfully give the audience behind the scenes peeks into the airport’s inner workings. The pictures posted, which prominently feature Hobbes (the tiger), more subtly show the airport through a lense the average traveler doesn’t see, such as what it’s like to be on the tarmac or in the control room. This naturally gave an intimate feel to the story, and helped the consumer feel as though he or she was getting information most people don’t see.

How the digital media followers were handled

As the article points out, the story “quickly went viral” (shortyawards.com, n.d.). The airport did a good job of posting updates to the story, keeping their followers engaged and helping the story continue to grow organically. They also engaged in conversations through comments, which lent itself to further increasing the intimacy of the story. From there, they seem to have achieved their goal of  “promot[ing] promote this act of kindness in a way that reflected the spirit of the gesture and showed the airport’s interest in delivering customer care with a personal touch” (shortyawards.com, n.d.).

Many people, I think, go to social media in search of “feel good stories.” While consumers are free to share or not share posts, by creating a personal story that engaged people in a meaningful way, TIA presented something followers wanted to share.

Lessons learned and what could have been done differently

Something TIA did well in this instance was bring attention to the people of the airport and the airport as a whole without once mentioning its operations (flights). Consider the estimate that about 6.5% of the population has a fear of flying (Seaney, 2013).  It seems likely to me this story made that group breathe a little easier as they traveled through TIA.

I’d like to have seen a theme of sorts come out of this story. It is surprising to me the operations manager spearheaded this; I would have thought it would be someone in marketing or public relations. To that point, it would be easy to encourage employees to be on the lookout for new stories as they go about their work. In fairness, though, even today on Facebook it’s clear TIA does a good job of keeping things interesting: at the time of this writing the most recent post was in the form of a poem, which conveyed how much they miss their passengers during this slow travel period. More companies should, in my opinion, take a similar approach.

Note on Ethics

According to business2community.com, several considerations should be made when evaluating ethics in social media environments. Among them: the importance of understanding your audience and it seems clear from the viral nature of this story TIA does. Also important are the needs to stay away from biases and be transparent. The airport accomplishes both here. They are not taking a political or other inflammatory stance on any issue, and they clearly present the story as is, letting it speak for itself and allowing consumers the opportunity to comment and share.

References

Akbar, T. (2016, June 14). 7 Fundamental Ethics of Social Media Marketing. Retrieved from https://www.business2community.com/social-media/7-fundamental-ethics-social-media-marketing-01571504

Seaney, R. (2013, October 7). Fear of Flying? Some Good Things to Know. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/fear-flying-good-things/story?id=20471481

shortyawards.com. (n.d.). Tale of tiger’s big adventure highlights airport’s commitment to customer service – The Shorty Awards. Retrieved from https://shortyawards.com/8th/boy-leaves-stuffed-tiger-at-tpa-returns-to-a-tale-of-tigers-big-adventure-see-more-at-httpww

Zhu, Y, Chen, H. (2015, May-June). Social media and human need satisfaction: Implications for social media marketing. Retrieved from https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/science/article/pii/S0007681315000075?via%3Dihub