Southwest.com Takes Top Honors

[kshoenfelt]

Have you ever built a custom home?  I certainly haven’t.  It seems so foreign to me to have to pick out what color grout will best match my tile and which side of my door the door handle should go on.  Where do I want my light fixtures or electrical outlets?  I’m not sure—I just want to know they are there and are usable.  In my experience, I prefer to buy and move into a home that has a cozy, “lived-in” feel, but with all of the upgrades and perks of a newer house.  Somewhere that I can feel at home and enjoy time with my family and friends, but without having to think about all of the little details that went into making it that way.

In my day-to-day at Southwest, I actually sit on the opposite side of the fence from my home-buying preferences.  For the past two years, our Online Customer Experience Team has been diligently working towards designing a new web “home” for Southwest, while still maintaining our existing—and affectionately loved—web site, southwest.com.  This has been a daunting exercise at times, but also very exciting, as we have been able to make key decisions to the newest designs of our site navigation, booking paths, Customer Service features, and frequently used Travel Tools.  We actively pursue feedback on how Customers prefer to book travel, how they choose to engage with us online or on their personal devices, and what features they wish we would have in the future.  It’s all about the details for us, and we LUV knowing that our page designs might make it easier for thousands of Customers to book their trips or find exactly what they’re looking for.

Recently, southwest.com earned a first place ranking for having the best possible Customer Experience for air travel web sites.  Keynote Competitive Research conducted the survey by observing and conducting online interviews with 2,000 prospective air travel Customers across ten leading air travel web sites.  The Customers were asked to evaluate a variety of features, including the home page, flight search, booking path, and Customer Service tools.  We are proud to report that Southwest Airlines was the clear winner for overall Customer Experience and received such comments from participants as “friendly,” “fun,” and, a “good value,” as they related their experience on southwest.com. 

This is a fantastic honor for us, and we are so pleased that this study showed the fruits of all the hard work that has gone into the continued redesign of our web site.  Though to us, our work is never done!  It will continue to be our Team’s goal to get these details just right so that when you are browsing the site to plan your next trip, you will find it so easy that you’ll feel right at home.

[Annoyed]

I find that Southwest has gone down hill in a big way. I have been a regular traveler on Southwest. My daughter has been an A-List member for the last few years. I have a frequent flyer voucher that Southwest is now making worthless. I've spent hours on the phone with reservations. Another hour waiting on the customer relations line (which is mostly busy). I have 8 tickets over the course of 3 months and I wanted simply to use the voucher for one of them. Nope. They have no frequent flyers available for any of the flights. Every time i give a flight they say no tickets. It was almost comical. Customer relations says sorry, they know it sucks, but nothing they can do (which we all know is false). Effectively their answer is to let it expire worthless and buy another ticket (good for them and bad for me). I call that frequent flyer a bait and switch. If this is the way they treat their top customers on the airline, I'm really appalled. I will be on the look out for alternate opportunities to fly other airlines. They are taking their customers for granted at this point. I used to have a lot of respect for this airline.

[Holman_Keezel]

The Customer Service Award is well deserved! I personally feel like I'm walking into the comfy confines of an old friends home when I board a flight. Every employee seems down to earth and welcoming, which I know is part of the job description, but I get the impression that they are simply acting as they would with friends and family. I don't think there is a more dedicated and customer-friendly airline around and it all starts at the top in the corporate office with people like you, that do such a great job putting forth a wonderful service. Now, if we could just get rid of that orange on the planes. Too close to burnt orange!

[cwags]

Flew Southwest for the 1st time, drawn by their ads for Customer Service (I work in the field), No bag fees and No Flight Change fees. My and my sister's flights were booked in Feb for a planned vacation. ($250 r/t). Our dear father passed away while we were away and we needed to change our flights and come back home. No problem? No flight change fees, ah...we booked Southwest. Since we did not have a computer, we called their "customer service" phone #. On hold for 35 mins. Our cell phone battery died. So we begged a resort hotel to use their computer, and lo and behold- Southwest's website was "down"- kept getting the charming OOPS message. Went back to rental house, recharged cell phone batteries and called again. This time the hold was only FORTY FIVE minutes. Finally get a rep on the line and explain need to change flights and why- he could have cared LESS. Good news? It only cost us $175.00 APIECE to change our flights (no change fee, you only pay the "FARE DIFFERENCE"). Well, you Southwest crooks got $525.00 out of 3 grieving daughters. Hope you are satisfied. You knew we would pay having to return for our father's funeral. Your reps could have cared less and we spent HOURS trying to get through to you. Thanks for the one time flying experience, which was lovely up until this point. Southwest has lost future customers and we will be more than HAPPY to provide free, negsative advertising on your policies which are misleading. Customer service and no fees for flight change? You should be ASHAMED.