Southwest Airlines Customer Service
By: Fran Halford
You have proven that you not only “try” but “do” the right thing.
Our company provides corporate training services to organizations throughout the US and abroad. As “road warriors,” our trainers often have horror stories involving airport or airline experiences. Those negative service experiences make good stories to share with others, but too often, exceptional and memorable service experiences do not get the same exposure.
Many times, employees providing top-quality customer experiences do not have the opportunity to see they really have made a difference by simply taking an extra step toward service excellence. We would like to change that in at least one case.
When deplaning a recent SWA flight, one of our trainers left a book on the aircraft. The book had been a gift and the trainer blamed himself for his forgetfulness. He accepted the fact that the meaningful inscription on the inside of the page would likely never be duplicated. After telling us what happened, we all recalled the many items we had left on airplanes that were never recovered.
Several days after the incident, a package arrived at our office…the book. Inside was the inscription, a personal poem signed by his dearest friends Margaret and Woody.
SWA personnel found the book and researched the incident. They identified the purchaser of the ticket, Alliance Training and Consulting, by a boarding pass used as a bookmark. They then sent the lost book to our office. This in itself is a superior customer service effort, but here is the best part; the bookmark-boarding pass used by the trainer was a Northwest Airline boarding pass-not even one from SWA!
Our trainer was elated to learn the book had been returned. His enthusiasm for the exceptional customer service was contagious. As our “training personalities” took over, we decided to let all of our trainers know about the incident and ask them to include it in the examples of exceptional customer service in their training sessions.
By: Fran Halford
© 2015 Alliance Training and Consulting, Inc.
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