The Clean and Green Club

In a business as bureaucratic as the airline industry, Southwest Airlines has always impressed me with its willingness to go against “normal” policy in order to do right by its customers. Not surprisingly, this positive attitude extends to doing right by its employees as well. And was probably one of the factors that led Southwest to maintain profitability–alone among US airlines–in the aftermath of 9/11.

We fly Southwest as often as possible, for a number of reasons:

• The company is very flexible if we need to change our plans; while most airlines simply void an unused ticket, Southwest lets you reschedule the same flight on another day
• It’s often the cheapest or close to cheapest option, and has brought down the cost of flying out of Hartford, our closest airport–before they came in, it was often as much as $600 to get a domestic flight, and we would have to go to New York or Boston to get anything affordable–now we can often find flights out of Hartford on Southwest and other carriers for $200-$300 round trip
• Their best flight attendants actually make it fun to fly again
• Last but certainly not least, when my sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First came out, the president of Southwest Airlines actually bought 1000 copies, making the book profitable the day it was printed <vbg>

In January, we were booked on an early morning Southwest flight from Hartford to Tampa, where we were supposed to catch a cruise ship. However, due to snow conditions in Hartford, our outbound flight was canceled the previous night, and the next one wouldn’t arrive in Tampa in time to board our ship. Fortunately, we had once again chosen Southwest.

From our hotel room near the Hartford airport, Dina got on the phone with Southwest while I used my laptop to rent a car.

The airline wanted to simply put us on a later flight to Tampa, but we politely and calmly explained that this really wouldn’t help us, since we’d have no way to catch up with our cruise ship. Without a huge amount of fuss, we got switched over to a flight into Fort Lauderdale, and from there, we rented a car and drove four hours the next day to meet our boat at its first port of call, Key West.

This itinerary shift would have been impossible or nearly impossible on most airlines. At Southwest, it was part of the customer satisfaction culture; there wasn’t even an extra charge.

Dina wrote a letter of commendation for the employee who had handled it, and this week we received a wonderful form letter from Southwest, along with a copy of the note from her supervisor thanking the employee directly and enclosing our letter.

Their letter said, in part (capitalization as in original),

Southwest Airlines is foremost a Customer Service Company, and our Employees are trained to always think of our Customers first…There is nothing that could please us more than to know that you and your husband enjoyed a dose of SOUTHWEST SPIRIT from one of our outstanding Employees. It is apparent from our records that you were assisted by Tamika, and am happy to share your kind words with her.

Thank you for sharing your heartfelt compliments with us, and thanks especially for your patronage and friendship. You and your husband are very special to all of us here at Southwest, and we anxiously await our next opportunity to make you smile.

Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever received a letter like that from a major corporation. A generic, bland thank-you, maybe, but nothing like that.

And the letter to the employee said,

I want to take a moment to add my voice to Ms. D. Dina Friedman’s in the interest of giving your outstanding Customer Service skills and SOUTHWEST SPIRIT their due recognition.

Just remember–every one commendation; every one act of kindness; and every one extra effort combine to make Southwest Airlines stand out above the rest. Thank you for being the ONE!

And all three letters (including the one we wrote) were copied to the two senior executives in charge of customer services and support, her team leader, and of course, the commended employee.

What do you think it does for employee loyalty, as well as customer loyalty, to do something very right but extremely out of the ordinary and get a commendation like that, with copies to two of the company’s vice presidents? This is a company that takes seriously its rhetoric of employee empowerment. Behavior that might have gotten her fired elsewhere is rewarded here.

Yes,  I recognize that Southwest is far from a perfect organization. But it stands light-years ahead of so many others in its industry. I’m proud to feature them as the Positive Power Spotlight of the month.