In what could signal a new trend in customer relations, a disgruntled passenger has paid to promote a tweet complaining about British Airways. UK businessman Hasan Syed was unhappy with the way the airline was dealing with his father’s lost baggage. However, rather than using a regular tweet from his account, Syed paid for a […]
In what could signal a new trend in customer relations, a disgruntled passenger has paid to promote a tweet complaining about British Airways.
UK businessman Hasan Syed was unhappy with the way the airline was dealing with his father’s lost baggage.
However, rather than using a regular tweet from his account, Syed paid for a promoted 140-character message that read “Don’t fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.”
See full tweet below:
Don't fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.
— (@HVSVN) September 2, 2013
The promoted tweet – which cost €759 ($1,000) and was aimed at the airline’s 300,000 followers on Twitter.
Promoted tweets are generally bought by advertisers. Twitter will then give the tweet high prominence so it can reach a broader audience.
In the first six hours since the tweet was promoted, it had attracted more than 25,000 impressions just on Twitter.
Many took to Twitter and other social media sites to support Syed and provide similar stories of lost luggage or poor customer service.
Four hours after the tweet was posted, the airline’s Twitter account responded: “Sorry for the delay in responding, our twitter feed is open 09:00-17:00 GMT. Please DM [direct message] your baggage ref and we’ll look into this.”
British Airways later apologised for any “inconvenience caused” and said the bag was due to be delivered today.
View Syed’s Final Spend (shown in a follow-up Tweet) below:
Final Spend pic.twitter.com/jgTHLGzlkk
— (@HVSVN) September 3, 2013
