I will be leaving for Las Vegas on Friday morning July 8, 2011. As part of any trip you start to pack, and then check your details. This trip to Vegas for me is one that has me excited, joining college friends to celebrate a close friend soon to be wed.
As we got closer to the trip, I did a tweet or two about heading to Las Vegas for the first time. Clearly people are listening because I received responses 
from a few places and promoters about events, VIP options etc. The most notable was my Hotel, @PalmsLasVegas, not only did they respond but they engaged a little themselves.
I had happened to do an article unknowingly about Klout and its Klout Perks, they shared some info and thoughts as time went on.
Just before the trip to Las Vegas, I tossed out another tweet about looking forward to the trip, an epic win again for @PalmsLasVegas who responded again in short order… “travel safely! Look forward to having you here on property!”
Now critiques of Social Media and Twitter in particular would argue that this casual interaction doesn’t provide any real value, but it does and just when ultimately everything went wrong it undisputedly proved that it (social media) did (provide real value)!
Today (Thursday July 7, 2011) less then 24hrs before heading to Las Vegas one of the people in our group told us about a $15 Fee (per day) we would get on this trip, the first reaction in a chain of emails was heavily negative. The group quickly noticed that the Palms website was down, then others including myself could not reach anyone at the front desk. As I had had previous success with tweeting I turned to @PalmsLasVegas for answers.
As you can see in the screen snap shots @PalmsLasVegas quickly works through a few different things, they clarified the fee, apologized, then turned to the issue with the website.
Remember this all started with the casual interaction that made me comfortable with the Palms Casino because of the twitter account @PalmsLasVegas. The concern that had been raised could not be resolved by traditional means via the phone and dare I also call the website a traditional means as well. The engagement using social media, twitter in particular allowed me to get the info I needed, or wanted. This, with the apology quickly resolved the concerns and negative association I was having with the Palms.
If you remember this entire resolve came from the website being down and the phones busy. When I took the next step and told @PalmsLasVegas that the website was down, they did not even know that there was an issue… here lies the undisputable ROI.
The social media team at the Palms shared that they are having issues finding any problem because the website is working on location, then they ask about what browser I am using. I quickly run the gauntlet using Chrome, IE and Firefox to confirm it’s not a browser issue, then after contacting several others at different locations and confirmed to @PalmsLasVegas the issue is not isolated or browser related. Within a few minutes the Palms website is live again and confirmed that they did have an issue and they “appreciated” the info.
What @PalmsLasVegas did with Social Media
- Created a welcome place for a casual conversation
- Provided a source of communication when others failed
- Provided information and eased the concern of clients or customers (15 of them)
- Discovered a larger issue of brand visibility (palms.com)
- Won a influential twitter fan for life in @BasilPuglisi
In this case the choice for the Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas to engage in social media using twitter to provide some casual conversation and great customer service created an epic win. I for one, can’t even remember why it was I was originally concerned, can you?
Sources:
*** NOTE *** On Sunday July 11, 2011 the Palms aquired @Palms and switched from @PalmsLasVegas to @Palms.