KLM have had some ups and downs with their social media efforts.  Certainly no one can blame them for not embracing social media, so you can forgive if their over-zealousness gets them in trouble sometimes…. Offensive World Cup tweet, their frankly creepy Surprise and potentially pervy Meet and Seat.

But they are dedicated and a fantastic example of Best Practise for customer service on social media.  Having really begun in earnest during the Ash Cloud disaster of 2010 – looking at their sites now will show you just how genuinely customer focussed they are.

Their Twitter account has their estimated response time updated every five minutes and clearly visible in their cover photo.

Their Facebook page also has this function.  Not only does it have great content – travel tips, news and a timeline that goes back to their foundation (I love it when brands use the timeline properly),

it has a host of apps that can be perused on their Social Journey page on Facebook.

You can … drumroll… book a flight on the page, which might seem obvious, but very few airlines have included this no-brainer function on their Facebook pages.  Another example of a genuinely useful function is the socially smart TripPlanner allowing fans to engage with friends and organise a group trip.

So whilst KLM may get a bit of stick about some of their less tactful activities – no can say they don’t pull out all the stops for their Followers and Fans.