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What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

GobyOneGnoby
Explorer C

Hello,

Sorry to post a complaint out of the gate, but wanted to share this more so to let SW know they really messed up.

The departing plane I was on had a mechanical issue that caused an hour delay which in turn caused me to miss a connecting flight. Things happen, I get it. Missing that flight caused a 4 hour layover which ended up costing a 1/2 day of onsite work. All told, 15 hours of travel with nothing to show but exhaustion. As unpleasant as the day was, I rolled with it and cut SW some slack as they've always take can great care of us. Looking back though, they never extended any type of apology, courtesy or anything for that matter. They rebooked my flight and said have a nice day, more or less.

As below average as the departing flight experience was, the return flight was a CARBON COPY! Except this time I decided to talk with the arriving gate agent who handed me a new boarding pass and said, "sorry these things happen." After the attempt to talk with the agent essentially fell on deaf ears, I decided to head to the departing gate to talk to the agent there with the thought that SW is pretty good with this sort of thing. WRONG! The next agent called her supervisor who told her to read an email and then began asking questions almost accusing me of being at fault. At the risk of losing composure, I walked away and decided to wait until I got home to call customer relations. After a 30 minute hold, the agent who answered was polite, empathetic and offered her complete attention and a $200 voucher. I thought about, expressed my disappointment, and declined.

This experience completely erased many years of SW loyalty. For decades, if it was a SW destination, we flew SW because they were incredible without fail. This week they failed incredibly.

7 REPLIES 7

Re: What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

That certainly doesn't sound like a fun trip.  As with all posts like this I would normally encourage you to reach out to Customer Relations since this is a customer to customer forum.  You've already done that and, as I suspected they would, Southwest offered a voucher to make up for the trouble.  I'm curious why you turned it down and what else you would want to happen.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

GobyOneGnoby
Explorer C

I felt it would be hypocritical to cancel future flights and accept the voucher.

Re: What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

dfwskier
Aviator A

@GobyOneGnoby wrote:

 

 


 

Sorry that you ran into difficulty.

 

Exactly what did you expect Southwest to do?

 

On your outbound, the plane broke, and the airline apparently put you on the next available flight. What more did you expect?

 

The gate agent on the return flight had it right: "sorry these things happen." The fact of the matter is that if you fly enough you are going to run into "the trip from hell" every once in a while. I sure have -- on Southwest, American, United and others.

 

If your desire is to file a complaint, you are not doing that here as this is a customer to customer forum. Here's how to file a complaint:

 https://community.southwest.com/t5/Knowledge-Base/Submitting-a-Suggestion-and-or-Complaint/ta-p/8724...

 

IMO, Southwest does a better of of getting things right than it's competition. That's Why customers have ranked it #1 in customer satisfaction among airlines for as long as I can remember. It doesn't always get things right, as your situation proves.

 

You certainly have every right to fly any airline you wish, but you are likely to find the others worse than Southwest. The choice is yours.

 

https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2020-north-america-airline-satisfaction-study

 

 

 

Re: What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

GobyOneGnoby
Explorer C

Sorry about posting this here.  Please delete.

Re: What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

dfwskier
Aviator A

You had every right to post here. You felt that Southwest let you down. That deserves to be posted so others can read about your situation.

Re: What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

rich1954
Adventurer A

Last year I was delayed for 3 hours. SW compensated me $100 for the inconvenience.  I had just retired from a job that paid $21 per hour. I was thrilled to be paid $30 an hour to sit in the airport.

Re: What happened to the legendary Southwest customer service?

gsking
Aviator C

Considering your reimbursement was tax free,  it was more like getting paid $50 an hour.