Britney Spears tweets on board a V Australia aircraft

There’s an old marketing adage that says that a satisfied customer will tell three people about their positive experience – while an unhappy customer will tell ten. This no longer applies. In the web 2.0 world of Facebook, forums, review-sites, blogs and real-time Twitter, a customer can potentially reach millions of people in a matter of seconds of any occurrence (good or bad) actually taking place.

If an airline does something right, or provides exceptional customer care, or provides the ultimate customer experience – people will write about it. Britney Spears did just this at both ends of her Australian tour between November and December while traveling with V Australia. Britney tweeted while boarding at LAX, arriving into Sydney, and then again on return back to Los Angeles in December.

No airline can put a price on the permanently indexed endorsement from somebody like Britney Spears. She has a pool of nearly four and a half million followers and, unlike most Twitter users, people often refer directly to her page for all her latest news.

Remember, every customer holds the airline’s reputation at ransom. If an airline doesn’t do its job – or they do it well – the world will know about it.