I was on my way to a conference in Las Vegas sitting on the airplane, (I know what you are thinking really rough job, right?) and in a snap I remembered why I fly Southwest Airlines. The free peanuts? Nope. The unassigned seats? Nope. The fact that they fly only one type of airplane to keep their costs down? Nope. All these things are great reasons why Southwest airlines is the airline of choice for people nationwide. But for me it’s all about the people and their commitment to the customer experience. Let me give you an example; Just a week earlier I flew out to South Carolina on an airline I won’t mention. They were running late and as soon as I stepped on the plane a flight attendant TOLD me : ”Sir, can you please move you are in my way!” and asked if I could please sit down, that I was holding things up. I sat down, shut up, and behaved myself the rest of the flight.
Fast forward just one week where David Holmes our flight attendant welcomed us in a nontraditional way asking us to participate in a rap. That’s right a rap! The entire plane stomped and clapped as he rapped the normal boring announcements, you know the ones that normally put you in a coma and make you feel as if the person on the other end of the mic is getting tortured. Here he is brining it home:
Now our plane was a little more pumped up and you should have heard the things being said afterwards by the passengers: “ That was awesome.” “Can you believe that.” “That’s why I fly Southwest.” I turned to one of my colleagues and said: “I love SWA.” Are your customer saying those things about you? If not chances are you missed the customer experience boat and it has already set sail. But it’s not too late to jump aboard. Here are 5 tips to turn it around:
- Take a risk: BE BOLD. This is a great time to separate your company from all the other companies out there that are just scrapping by. For example while all other airlines are charging $20 for checking bags, Southwest airlines lets your bags fly free and even has created a branding and marketing campaign that your bags are being treated unfairly by the other airlines. Other airlines saw it as another revenue stream (short term) SWA saw it as away to differentiate themselves to their customers (long term)
- Unwrap the Gifts: Your major role as leader or manager is to put your people in positions to use their areas of giftedness. In the example given, a leader at southwest believed in David enough to hire him and gave him the flexibility to use whatever gifts he had to WOW the customer. Don’t stifle the creativity of your employees from creating an amazing customer experience
- Release the Power: Let go of the power. Give the power to the people to make whatever decisions necessary to take care of the customer. Get rid of policies and procedures and put yes into their vocabulary
- Define the Win: Determine what a win looks like to your team and to your organization and how to measure it . Maybe it’s response time, client retention rate, or referrals. Whatever it is know what your WIN is!
- Reward the troops: Celebrate wins EVERYDAY as a team and with your customers. Set certain benchmarks for excellence and achievement milestones. Winning is fun and everyone loves a good celebration
Infuse these 5 tips into your company and you will be cruising by your competitors in your customer experience hovercraft in no time. Remember, love your peeps, love your customers and they will love you back…
Comments