Dear Fred,
You will soon be receiving a letter from me detailing my unfortunate experience with Southwest today. I'm actually writing this from Denver Airport right now - at least they are considerate enough to take care of their customers here with free Internet.
In short, I really want to get home to see my wife and dog. I awoke at 5am to take an earlier flight to BWI just to see them sooner. I asked the ticket agent if there was any room on the 845am flight, and there was plenty she said. I told her that I didn't want to wait until the 145pm flight and I would like to help SW out by being on an earlier plane, thus opening up my seat at that later time which you may need due to the usual difficult weather in Denver.
Despite logical reasoning, the capacity to fill my need and address one of SW's, all three SW employees I plead my case to were rigid. All three stated that Herb would prefer I pay a $228 upgrade fee for the "privilege" of flying earlier. Each stated that "lots of business travelers fly our airline and pay full fare" despite my argument that I've never in my life heard of or known anyone to fly SW for the privilege of paying full fare. SW customers, business and recreational, fly SW for the fun of the experience, the low cost fares, and the general ease of customer experience.
All that seems to have changed now. SW is just another profit-only focused airline.
If you'd like to retain me as a happy customer (and no doubt countless other formerly happy SW customers) in these economic times where customer retention is the difference between success and failure, and between the old SW and every other airline, you would be well served to start thinking about the customer first again. Now that would be proactive customers service.
Regards,
M C Oxley
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