Oct 26 2009
Southwest Airlines’ Updated Email Program is a Winner
I have been a fan of Southwest Airlines for years. They seem to truly want to please their customers and are always making changes to the way they work to make processes better. Some recent changes that they have made for the better include assigning a boarding range instead of everyone in the boarding group crowding together, taking credit cards for in-flight services, accepting online check-in 24 hours prior to your flight, allowing some pets in the cabin and now improving the post-purchase phase of their email program.
One pet peeve I have had with Southwest in the past is that once I purchased a ticket for a flight online I would get an email confirmation at the point of purchase, but nothing else. My confirmation would then get buried deep in my email inbox. When the time came for my flight and I needed my confirmation number, I would have to go “deep inbox fishing” to find it. This confirmation could be buried under thousands of emails. Now Southwest has changed this process for the better.
Here’s a closer look at what Southwest is doing now:
Southwest first sends the initial confirmation email immediately following the point of purchase. In this case I purchased the ticket a little less than a month before the flight. The email subject line was “Ticketless Confirmation – LANE/JORDAN.”
A reminder email, with the important confirmation numbers, is sent a few days prior to the flight. Now I have all the confirmation information I need without having to fish through my inbox for the original confirmation email! Here is the reminder email I received four days prior to my scheduled flight, with the subject line, “Jordan, your trip is right around the corner!”
The morning after my flight I received a survey asking how my Southwest Airlines experience was. The survey was short, to-the-point and delivered in rich text so it would be easy to read on mobile devices (and for those who do not have images turned on). The survey subject line was “Survey: Your Most Recent Southwest Airlines Flight.”
Nice work Southwest Airlines! They provide an excellent example of transactional campaigns done well. Know of any others? Please share with us.
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While I have had pleasant experiences
with Southwest, today was most unpleasant.
I left BOS at 8am for ABQ with a change of
planes at Midway. When I got to my departure
gate, people boarding my flight were told
that “ABQ was closed due to a snow storm”
and they didn’t know when or if it would
reopen today, 1/22/10.
People got on their phones to tell ABQ
people picking us up of SW dire prediction
of travelling to ABQ. Within minutes, everyone’s
phones were ringing with the same response.
ABQ is NOT closed and the temp was 46 degrees.
I called Sunport and they confirmed that
the airport wad indeed open. Anger developed
at SW lying to us. Apparently they were
concerned about the weather. OK, that’s
understandable but why lie to us? There were
at least 60 people standing around with
cell phones and Internet. Did they really
think passengers were that stupid? As if
that wasn’t bad enough, the male supervisor
was incredibly rude to everyone.
I again called Sunport and all other flights
were landing with no more than a 15 minute
delay. But Southwest did not land a flight
all afternoon.
Shame on Southwest for sloppy public
relations.