Thursday, September 27, 2007

Travel operators and online reputation management

Major airline companies as well as travel companies are gearing up to better their efforts at online reputation management. Online travel sites are frequented and subscribed to by a lot of users because of the convenience factors. You can book tickets at subsidized rates and you also enjoy the convenience of booking your tickets from the comfort of your own home. However, though it is a hot online industry, it invites a lot of wrath and bad publicity if things go wrong. There are issues when the credit card charge is declined, tickets are not delivered at the right time, the seat numbers go awry or if there is a fraudulent charge on the account. At all of these times and more, the consumer has to take the flak.


Consumers make sure that they vent their dissatisfaction in blogs and forum sites. If you take the example of a website like makemytrip.com, in mouthshut.com, you will see giving reviews about how the service sucked or how they were charged in fraudulently. The allegations may be true or in some cases, even the company can be right. How does the online travel company give it clarification or provide a suitable response. It does through a corporate blog, a platform that companies like makemytrip.com have done proactively on the mouthshut.com site, in reply to consumer comments and whiplash. It is a positive step that such companies have taken to make sure that they retain their business, show their side of the picture to its customers. Above all, it improves the communication level between the customers and the company.


By virtue of the corporate blog, a lot of queries have been resolved and a lot of doubts, issues and speculations have been put to rest. Progressive companies like makemytrip.com have gone ahead and scouted through various blogs and forum sites to find out what exactly is being written about their service. This helps to take care of the loopholes and set the wrongs right. Some times companies even do not mind by passing certain charges or eliminating certain costs which consumers have to give for the sake of goodwill. A little sacrifice certainly pays and a steady monitoring helps to a vast extent. Is your firm practicing online reputation management?


2 comments:

Venkat said...

gr8, good post

Anonymous said...

There is another site called Admanya.com which is one of the most popular product information site, Admanya contains numerous consumer written reviews among other content