Really smart email from the folks over at Southwest. I’ve been an A-List status member of the Southwest Rapid Rewards program for some time. At least 2 years I think. Earlier today I received this awesome email from Southwest, outlining my A-List benefits.
Even though I’ve been a member and an avid fan of Southwest, I couldn’t believe the number of benefits I had forgotten about. Smart email. Makes me even feel better about my A-List status.
I love Southwest Airlines. If you follow me on twitter or have been a regular reader here you know I’m not exaggerating. But, just because I love them doesn’t mean I won’t criticize them.
On March 1st, they overhauled their loyalty program. They call it the Rapid Rewards program. In many respects the program is a leap forward. For example:
1. There are no black out dates. Granted that doesn’t mean there aren’t blackout flights on those days.
2. Points never expire so long as there is some account activity in the past 24 months. Very cool.
3. As soon as points are earned they can be used. The old program required you to accrue 16 points before you could redeem.
So far, so good. But, here’s where I think they made a mistake. Under the old program you earned the same number of points (1 to be exact) for every flight you took regardless of destination or mileage. Thus, a flight from New York City to Boston earned you the same number of points as a flight from New York City to Los Angeles. With the new program, you earn more points for the longer/greater mileage flights. Incidentally, these are of course, also the more expensive flights. I know why Southwest did this.
As a marketer, I genuinely understand it. Too many people were earning too many points too quickly, thus generating more free flights than Southwest preferred. In essence the new program is a traditional miles program, that’s really no different than what American, United or Delta offer. That’s disappointing when you consider how different Southwest is from those airlines.
Now, I started this post talking about how this program is a loyalty program. That’s really what it is. Great loyalty programs reward their most valuable members better than casual members. Under the new program, Southwest isn’t really rewarding loyal behavior.
Loyalty, when it comes to air travel, really is about frequency. The big question being, how many flights will this customer take on my airline. Think about it, if you fly 50 round trips a year, that’s 50 opportunities for you to choose Southwest or the competition. Under the new program, a very frequent flyer like me, is penalized for flying short flights. I travel from Chicago to Pittsburgh and Chicago to Minneapolis at least 6 times a month in total. But, I earn less points than the person traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles twice a month.
Aren’t I a more loyal customer in this scenario? Is not my frequent patronage more valuable than the longer trips flown by a more infrequent flier? I think so. What do you think?
Full disclosure: I loathe Delta Airlines for so many reasons.
I was strolling throughout the Minneapolis – St. Paul airport this evening on my way to a Delta Airlines flight that was of course 2:30 delayed, when I saw this new sign. It sorta struck me. Delta has implemented these signs and charging stations throughout their gates at the airport. The reason it struck me wasn’t because it was new. No, it struck me because it’s a direct rip off of the charging stations Southwest has been offering for years. And, while imitation is certainly the most sincere form of flattery, you can’t help but be struck by the massive gap that exists between Delta and Southwest when it comes to customer service.
Tonight, I arrived at the airport 70 minutes before the scheduled take-off. I had checked the flight status before leaving and the flight was on time. Some how, in the 10 minutes between when I checked and when I arrived at the airport, we were now 2 hours delayed. No notification (Southwest offers this) and no warning. When I arrived at the gate, the gate agent couldn’t offer any information about why we were delayed (this never happens on Southwest). Finally, we learned why (the inbound aircraft was delayed coming from St. Louis), but the agent wasn’t sure if the current scheduled time was accurate (again, never happens with Southwest). While we were all waiting for the flight an automatic notification played every 15 minutes or so over the intercom; it was reminding us that the flight was 2 hours delayed and we could purchase food on the plane (Southwest doesn’t do this period, and usually when there’s a significant delay they hand out free adult drink tickets). Think about that. Hey, not only are you delayed, but by the way you can overpay for crappy food on the plane; cool? When the flight finally arrived, there was more great news: we would be flying on a regional jet, so we’ll all need to gate-check our baggage (this never happens on a Southwest flight), which just adds to the delay when you land. The flight attendants lacked empathy and were robotic (never happens on Southwest). Talk about a hell of an experience. But, honestly, this isn’t an isolated incident. This is Delta airline at it’s norm.
They can try to change the signage, they can try to copy, but the gap between them and Southwest is Grand Canyon wide.
Heck, even the visual is a demonstration of that they just aren’t “plugged-in” or “connected.”
Looking out the window of my Southwest flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh. I’ve guessing this was shot someplace over Ohio. Not quite sure.
I love the book and the movie, Animal Farm. Early on in the story, right after the animals take over the farm they erect a sign that states, “All Animals Are Created Equal.” I love the sentiment. By, the near end of the story, after the pigs have taken over control of the other animals, that sign changes to “All Animals Are Created Equal, Some Are More Equal Than Others.”
As many of you know, I’m a huge Southwest Airlines fan. I often opt to fly them knowing a connection is needed, than take a direct flight. Sounds crazy, I know, but that’s how much of a believer I am in their brand. It’s been well documented that they’ve really nailed customer service in the age of the real-time web. I’ve always been impressed with how fast they’ve addressed feedback.
When the Kevin Smith situation popped up a few weeks ago, I took Southwest’s side. I genuinely felt they handled the situation appropriately. In the face of tough feedback from a very popular and influential traveler, the stood their ground and didn’t bend to Kevin Smith’s pressure. As the Kevin Smith situation was blowing up, I again, couldn’t believe how quickly they were addressing the situation. From tweets, to apologies, to phone calls, to even a blog post, they were Johnny on-the-spot.
Last Thursday, March 11th, I had a very uncharacteristically negative experience with Southwest. I was flying my seemingly weekly flight from Chicago to Minneapolis. The arriving airplane that we were to use was coming from Florida. Unfortunately for me and the other flyers it was more than 2 hours late because of weather, which I never hold an airline accountable for. Look, weather problems happen and you definitely want to be safe up there in the sky. The situation got worse though. After the flight landed in Chicago, there was a maintenance problem. Apparently the forward lavatory “spilled” or “over-flowed” (both terms were used) and maintenance would need to clean things up. Again, hey, mistakes happen. And I can completely understand the need to clean up something as unsanitary as bathroom “waste.”
Well, unbeknownst to many of us sitting in the first few rows, the spill/over-flow didn’t just stay contained to the galley; it went as far as the first few rows of the plane. The carpets underneath the seats were soaked. But, you couldn’t really tell this unless you looked very closely. Unfortunately, I looked closely, far later than I should have. I had put my Timbuk2 bag that contained my laptop and some documents under the seat in front of me. That makes sense right? You always put your smaller bag underneath the seat in front of you…at least that’s what the flight attendants encourage you to do.
When we arrived in Minneapolis, 3+ hours later than scheduled, I we pretty beat. When I reached down to grab my bag, I noticed the entire bottom was soaked. The spill/over-flow had soaked through my bag, thus ruining it and the documents it contained. Thankfully, the laptop was ok. To make matters worse, you can’t wash this Timbul2 bag and there was no way I was going to keep using a “waste” soaked bag. Sorry, but that’s just not very sanitary. So, for the first time ever, I tweeted something negative about Southwest. To their credit I instantly received a direct message stating “Uh oh! I’m so sorry! I hate hearing that…what happened? Anything I can do? Feel free to email me: xxxxxxx.xxx@wnco.com.” Literally within an hour of receiving it, I sent an email to the Southwest employee that explained a shortened version of the above. I proactively included my Rapid Rewards Number (I’m an A-List member) and my confirmation code for the flight. After I sent the email I sent a direct message back letting them know I sent the email, per their request.
It’s Sunday and I still haven’t received a response back. I’m bummed, but I’m not surprised. Where as Kevin Smith got a formal apology, a flight credit, a blog post and a whole lot more; I’ve gotten nothing. But, you know what? I’m ok with it. Why? Because, I’m not silly enough to think that I matter as much or more than Kevin Smith. It would be nice if I did, but I know that I don’t. Southwest has less to lose with me than they do with him. As they’re prioritizing who to respond to and how quickly, I’m sure that Adam Kmiec is further down the list than a celebrity like Kevin Smith.
If you will, “Some Animals Are More Equal.” As paying customers, we sorta need to remember that, even though it kinda sucks.
If you’re a normal person, you spent the weekend with your family, friends, relaxing, enjoying some well needed rest and relaxation, and tuning into the Winter Olympics. But, if you were like me, your eyes were transfixed on twitter instead of the TV. This weekend we watched a very angry Kevin Smith (yes, that Kevin Smith) vent his frustration at Southwest Airlines.
Let me give you the high-level version of the story:
Southwest is known for great customer service. I, like many people, watched with fascination as Southwest tried to deal with the situation. Would they buckle under the weight (no pun intended) of Kevin Smith’s followers and clout?
Well, they handled the situation with calm, grace, honesty and most importantly EQUALITY. They offered up several tweets, phone calls and finally a blog post. The Southwest blog has been inundated with traffic, which has ground their site to a screeching halt. With that in mind, here’s the full text of their blog post response to the situation.
NOT SO SILENT BOB
Many of you reached out to us via Twitter last night and today regarding a situation a Customer Twittered about that occurred on a Southwest flight. It is not our customary method of Customer Relations to be so public in how we work through these situations, but with so many people involved in the occurrence, you also should be involved in the solution. First and foremost, to Mr. Smith; we would like to echo our Tweets and again offer our heartfelt apologies to you. We are sincerely sorry for your travel experience on Southwest Airlines.
As soon as we saw the first Tweet from Mr. Smith, we contacted him personally to apologize for his experience and to address his concerns on both Twitter and with a personal phone call. Since the situation has received a lot of public attention, we’d like to take the opportunity to address a few of the specifics here as well.
Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank – as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest. He decided to change his plans and board an earlier flight to Burbank, which technically means flying standby. As you may know, airlines are not able to clear standby passengers until all Customers are boarded. When the time came to board Mr. Smith, we had only a single seat available for him to occupy. Our pilots are responsible for the Safety and comfort of all Customers on the aircraft and therefore, made the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight. Our Employees explained why the decision was made, accommodated Mr. Smith on a later flight, and issued him a $100 Southwest travel voucher for his inconvenience.
You’ve read about these situations before. Southwest instituted our Customer of Size policy more than 25 years ago. The policy requires passengers that can not fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling. This policy is not unique to Southwest Airlines and it is not a revenue generator. Most, if not all, carriers have similar policies, but unique to Southwest is the refunding of the second seat purchased (if the flight does not oversell) which is greater than any revenue made (full policy can be found here). The spirit of this policy is based solely on Customer comfort and Safety. As a Company committed to serving our Customers in Safety and comfort, we feel the definitive boundary between seats is the armrest. If a Customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a Customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.
I love Kevin Smith. I love his movies, except Jersey Girl. Mallrats, specifically, holds a special place in my heart. So, as you’d imagine, part of me was pulling for Kevin Smith. Initially…that is. But, as I watched Kevin Smith act like a petulant child, my allegiance switched. And, then after reading their official blog post response, I was 100% in the Southwest camp.
See, celebrities love to think they are above everyone else. You only need to read TMZ to see the countless number of examples that validate that sentiment. Where as many companies would have simply kissed Kevin Smith’s derriere and treated him with kid gloves, Southwest did something simple, but remarkable. They treated Kevin Smith the same way they’d treat everyone.
Southwest has a simple policy. Kevin Smith was clearly aware of the policy…seeing as he normally buys two seats. Those two simple facts alone make this an open and shut case. If Kevin Smith and every other potential and current Southwest customer wants to avoid this problem in the future they should simply put the donut down.
As someone who flies every single week, I can tell you that it’s simply not fair that I pay for a seat, but only get to use 2/3 of it because the person next to me is taking up 1 1/3 seats. This wasn’t a new policy from Southwest. They weren’t singling Kevin Smith out. What Southwest was doing was being simple, honest and fair. If only every company out there was like Southwest.
Do we need a bit of a reality check?
I was in a client meeting a few days ago where we collaborating on their 2010 social strategy. The social strategy ultimately is tied to the overall marketing strategy and thus the well defined business objectives. As we were plotting out a fairly robust and comprehensive plan, our client paused and asked a great question, “We don’t know if what we have behind the door is a drip or a flood; how will we scale to meet their real time expectations?”
Think about that question. It’s profound really. When we mailed in comments to companies we might have accepted a 30 day turn around for feedback. When we email customer support, it’s reasonable to expect anywhere from 24 to 48 hours for a response. When we call the 1-800 number, we’ll tolerate 15 minutes to hours (depending on call volume and your need) to connect with a real person.
But, in the social space (twitter, Facebook, etc.) we demand, not expect, INSTANT feedback. So, again, I ask, do we need a bit of a reality check? I even find myself expecting immediate feedback when I tweet a company, comment on a post, or make a request via a forum/message board. Is that right?
Let’s consider a few things:
There seems to be a gap here, no? Let’s assume you’re a company that offers a service. If you have 10 customers and 1 customer service person, you’re probably ok. But, if you have 1,000 customers and still that 1 customer service person, you’re going to be stretched. Ok, so what happens if you have 1,000,000 customers and still only 1 customer service person? Well, you aren’t going to be able to provide great customer service. Hmmm…ok, so we’ll just hire 99,999 more customer service people to bring us back to our ratio of 1 customer service person per 10 customers. Cool, but we’ve got to pay these people. For the purposes of round numbers let’s assume each person costs the company $100,000 in salary, benefits, and operations. Well we just went from $100,000 of customer service overhead costs to $9,999,900,000. That’s a big jump, no?
Is the company going to eat those costs? Of course not. They’re going to pass those costs on to you. If amortized equally, each customer will now be paying at a minimum $9,999.90 more. Guess what’s going to happen? Yeap, we’re going to have some pretty ticked off customers.
Look, that’s an extreme situation, but the round numbers show us that customers like you and me need to be willing to do 1 of 2 things:
Surely, there’s a middle ground. Companies like Zappos, Comcast, Southwest and others are showing us the way. But, you can’t simply copy someone else’s model. If you’re a company you need to find your own model; one that works for your culture and customers. And as companies are developing these models what are we to do as customers? Should we change our expectations? I think we should. If we don’t, companies will be reluctant to enter the social space. After all it’s easier to keep us using older and more familiar tools for customer service, like email, letters and the phone.
There’s a reason Apple isn’t in the social space. Part of it is arrogance. But, the other part is they don’t have a model for how to make it work. Think I’m wrong? Consider the Genius Bar. Have you ever tried to walk up and get help at a Genius Bar? If you’re like the majority of Apple customers, it’s a rare occasion when they’ll simply help you on the spot. A more likely situation is the Apple employee will ask you to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar. Granted, that appointment could be for a time 15 minutes in the future. The point is, they schedule, slot and meter your ability to get customer service. And, while they’re doing that, they’re also getting major kudos for offering amazing customer service. Not too shabby, huh? Imagine if Apple was on twitter and using the platform for customer service…an extension of the Genius Bar, if you will. Do you really think customers would accept an exchange like this:
Customer: “Hey, having a problem with 15″ MacBook Pro. The screen keeps shutting off randomly. Any thoughts? Thanks.”
Apple: “Thanks for your tweet, unfortunately all of today’s, tomorrow’s, and the rest of the week’s slots are filled up. I can tweet you back in about next Thursday. Thanks.”
No customer would dare accept that. After all, if you have time to tweet me that, you should have time help me out. If Apple, instead ignored the customer’s tweet until next Thursday, the customer would still be irritated because of the time lag in getting a response. See, it’s the expectations of the medium. Almost feels like a no win situation.
So, what do we do?
If you’ve ever flown on an airplane you know how emotional of an experience it can be. From booking the ticket to landing at the destination the whole experience is one giant emotional roller coaster. To use a simple word, it’s stresfull. Here are some of the questions that go through my mind:
There’s dozens more, but those are some of the major ones. I think you can see what I mean when I say: stressful.
Well, as many of you know this has been a stressful week for me. Getting carbon monoxide poisoning and ending up in a hyperbaric chamber kinda does that to you.
I was due to fly out of Pittsburgh, PA on Northwest Airlines flight 1921 on Saturday March 21, 2009 and return to Pittsburgh on Northwest flight 3272 on March 22, 2009.
But, after the insanity of this week, all I wanted to do was get home as soon as possible. I was in Chicago on business Tuesday through Friday morning. Rather than fly back to Pittsburgh on Friday and then fly back across the country to Minneapolis on Saturday, I simply booked a Southwest Airlines ticket from Chicago to Minneapolis on Friday. That put me back together with the family 1 day earlier. And I tell you, after nearly dying, there ain’t nothing like family to make you feel alive.
Tonight, I tried to check in for my flight online at NWA.com. I received an error message and it wouldn’t let me check in. I called the Northwest Airlines customer service number, made my way through 5 minutes of automated prompts, and finally ended up with a human being. I explained my problem and he quickly diagnosed.
Northwest Airlines canceled my ticket for Sunday because I didn’t take the Saturday flight out to Pittsburgh. This was news to me. I’ve changed flights dozens of times; especially when on business and I’ve never run into this problem. I asked what that meant and he responded that they could reinstate my ticket for a penalty fee of $150.00 and the price difference between the old ticket and new ticket. By new ticket, I mean literally the SAME ticket I already had, but they canceled.
I sought a higher power and asked to speak with someone else. Surely, this must be a mistake, right? I was transfered to, Michael, a supervisor. From the get go he was cold. I re-explained my situation and he said amongst other things
it’s not an emotional thing.
He pointed out that had I read the full terms and conditions before booking the flight I would have known that this would happen. Gee, thanks for making me feel even dumber. As he put it, “we’re in the business of selling tickets.” That was in response to my questioning why they canceled my flight. See, Northwest assumed that since I didn’t take the first leg of my trip I wouldn’t be taking the 2nd leg. They wanted to sell my ticket at a much higher cost. In doing so they’ve sold the seat twice.
I was amazed…stupefied really. Michael explained to me that the rules are the rules, I should have known better, and it wasn’t his fault I took a different flight out. Wow. He even prodded me to go into details about why I changed my ticket. I explained to him the carbon monoxide situation and he that’s when he said, well “it’s not an emotional thing.” The conversation went back and forth for about 20 minutes. During that time I even flat out asked him do you think this is right? He fell back on the old rules are rules bit. He was condescending, argumentative, and cold as ice.
Before hanging up the phone I asked him 3 things:
As you can imagine, I was a little more than hot under the collar. I couldn’t get over the rudeness, lack of civility, and coldness exhibited by Northwest and their “customer service” staff. I looked on twitter to see if Northwest had a presence. I was hoping to correspond with someone else before writing this post, but as you’d imagine I didn’t find anything.
To be clear, yes the rules are the rules. Yes, I should have printed them, read them, and I guess followed them explicitly. But, I also believe there is a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.
When you compare this experience to my experiences with Southwest it’s no wonder Southwest continues to thrive will Northwest struggles to maintain it’s existence. Now that Southwest is flying to Minneapolis, you can be sure all my future flights from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis will be on Southwest…even though I’d have to connect in Chicago. Yes, that’s right. I’m giving up direct flights for connecting ones. The difference in customer service is just staggering.
Southwest thanks for coming to the Twin Cities; it’s nice to have an alternative.
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
