Improving Social Media Presence in Swissport by Developing Official Website - Case Study Example

Improving social media presence in Swissport by developing official website By: Student’s Name Course and course code Class Institution Date Introduction Swissport is a ground and air cargo handling service company that was formed and founded in the year 1996 as Swissair Ground Service International a self standing auxiliary entity of an early merge between Balair and Ad Astra Aero in 1931 (Bazarga, 2010).Swissport has experienced rapid growth over the years to become the world’s biggest aircraft service provider in ground handling. It provides service on behalf of more than 800 customer companies and more than 200 million passengers with about 3.9 million flights annually. It is active in all the five continents in approximately 48 nations. Aim of the study. This report aims at providing systematic views, plans and ideas of improving media presence in the Swisport and information access by customers. Providing detailed report on how the development of interactive official Swissport website will contribute to increased media presence and improved customer service with increased market spheres. Objectives 1. To identify ways to develop a better and interactive official website for the organization that will improve media presence of the company. 2. To stipulate how media presence of the company will enhance its market, improvement of service delivery and overall profit increase. Literature review Dnata Aviation Company, one of the main competitors of the Swissport is among the top ground handling and air cargo service provider companies in the world. Its social media presence is so immerse and reliable that it has managed to have a big number of satisfied customers. It uses an interactive twitter platform to update and pass information to its customers about new offers, services and that allows customers to give their feedback about the airline performance and how they can improve the services. With increased use of social media globally, the need for organizations to engage their clients through social media has developed to easily disseminate facts about their services. This makes the marketability of a given organization better than its competitors (Begne, et al, 2016). On the other hand quick response about the customer’s concerns improves and makes interesting the interaction between the customers and the company (Helpern, 2012). This brings about customer satisfaction. In order for a ground handling and air cargo service company to become a brand, media presence is the main platform through which this goal can be achieved faster than any other means (Katona, n.d). Menzies Aviation Company, another competitor to Swissport International Limited Company, uses heavily social media presence as the main channel of meeting client needs through LinkedIn (Katona, n.d). Its social media accounts are said to be so big in branding with a reputation of instant response to customer concerns. It is stipulated that social media presence ensures better relationship and interaction. They provide a listening ear in real time to the clients and it is a cost effective way of collecting data and doing brand evaluation of the organization (Heracleous, Wirtz, and Pangarkar, 2009). It allows reporting of misconduct of its employees and quick measures can be appropriately taken. Research methodology According to Jha, 2008, research methodology is the theoretical analysis and representation of strategies of doing research. It involves descriptive inclusion of the study design used, study populations, identifying samples, identification of research tools, data collection, data analysis and presentation. Research design Data was collected from various sources which included journals, books and articles. It was analysed to establish how social media presence is a major contributing factor in the company’s success. Analysis of the various websites which included Swissport’s main competitors: Dnata and Menzies aviation company’s was done to make a judgement of how better they are and what criteria they use in engaging their customers. How they use media presence in attracting their customers besides providing them with better services. In his journal, “Social Media Marketing”, Katona writes how positively the social media contributed to the organizational market. The larger number of tweets quantifies the customer’s perspective. Real-time responses and consultation platform will encourage consumers to use a brand. Brands results in trust development from its consumers and perceived usefulness. Through that the organizational credibility is built making it influential as compared to the competitors (Taneja, 2014). Despite an entity being widely known, social media presence causes increment of brand recognition. Social media can be used to help consumers make informed decisions about the company’s services (Elder, 2015). Long term benefits ensue as the organization’s brand voice strengthens. Researchers have found out that humanizing a brand psychologically causes attraction of people due to the human need of socializing with others to get satisfaction. To this effect, the social media can be used to humanize it. Social platform can act as a source of useful information that contributes to further research of the company’s progress. Historical data can be collected processed and analysed to identify the effects on consumers (Dwivedi, and Emmadi, 2012). The cost of advertising on other media platforms reduces with the effectiveness possibly rising with use of social media. Research construction Theoretical analysis and collection of sampled written materials relevant to the study were used. Bazargan’s book, he gives guidelines concerning the importance of humanizing a company’s social presence was used. His contribution is important as he is an airline and ground handling & air cargo company consultant in England. The aim of his book was to emphasize to airliners and ground handling aviation companies to incorporate innovative measures such as social media to attract customers. He further emphasized on the psychological role social media plays towards attracting the clients and making an organization more competitive than others. The Dnata and Menzies aviation companies’ websites provided comparative information of competition and their use of social media presence in attraction of customers and branding their airlines. Main discussion In comparison with its main competitors’ official websites, Dnata and Menzies aviation company, Swissport’s is less advanced and less interactive. There is no online platform of engagement with the customers. The Dnata and Menzies aviation companies’ websites allows online booking by customers with discounts. Aspect that is unique with them. This saves time and the difficult exercise of manual booking is avoided. It leads to preference of use by customers. In these websites, contrary to the Swissport’s, one can subscribe to email and LinkedIn newsletters that provide updates of news, changes and offers of these companies. This keeps them on track and updated about the organization. Kortana, a renowned businessman with investments in Indian aviation companies, in his journal, he states out of experience how real-time communication with the clients can help capture the market while meeting demands. Social presence increases the rates of reaching more clients and contributes in collection of research data used to score the organizational progress. Analysis From the above findings, increased interaction with customers increases the trust and credibility. More client problems are solved and client satisfaction is ensured. The more social media presence is embraced by an organization; the expenses of branding reduce as effectiveness and brand equity increases. This is majorly due to the fact that social media is free and easy to use. Reaching many people is easy and it is not time consuming. Those ground handling and air cargo aviation companies that have embraced social media platform are the main competitors of Swissport International Limited Company. Therefore, a conclusion can be made that partly, that is one of the contributing factors for their better performance in aspects of customer care. It is recommended that the restructuring of the official website of Swissport be implemented and include social interaction platform with its clients. This can be done by creating a newsletter registration portal where clients with emails can subscribe for updates on the company’s services. The official website should also be structured in a way that allows online booking and payment through visa cards or mobile money transfer services. This reduces the client traffic when booking and it is time friendly.Besides, the social media links for registration such as those of LinkedIn,face book and twitter among others be incorporated. The Swissport authority should come up with an independent department dealing with social media presence and effectively ensuring dissemination of information to clients. They should be timely and real-time responses to clients to be provided in all the used social medias and through emails. Bibiliography Bazarga, M. (2010). Airline Operations And Scheduling. Farnham, Surrey, England: Eshgate Begne, E., Andreu, L., Hernandez, B. And Ruiz, C. (2016). The influence of social media and offline influences on consumer behaviour. An analysis of the low cost airline industry. Current issues in Tourism, [online] pp.1-19.Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2015.1126236 [Accessed 8 May 2016] Dwivedi, P. and Emmadi, H. (2012). Airline service quality index for Indian carriers. Saarbrucken, Germany: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co.KG. Elder, L. (2015). Malaysian Airline, Neoliberalism and Business as Usual in Malaysia. Asian Journal of Social Science, [onlone] 43(1-2), pp. 23-49. Availlable at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685314-04301003 [Accessed 8 May 2016]. Helpern, N. (2012). Use of social media by airports. Journal of airline and airport management. pp. 1-34 Heracleous, L., Wirtz, J. And Pangarkar, N. (2009).Flying higher in a competitive industry. Singapore: McGraw Hill. Katona, Z. (n.d). Social Media Marketing: How much Are Influentials Worth?. SSRN Electronic Journal. [online] Available at: http://Dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2242989 [Accessed 8 May 2016]. Taneja,N.(2014). Looking beyond the runway.Farnharm,Surrey:Ashgate. Jha,N.(2008). Research methodology.Chandigarh:Abhishek Publications. Read More