Creating a Great Spirit of Service at Southwest Airlines; An Interview with Colleen Barrett, President.

Service. Whether you make a piece of hardware, or deliver a face-to-face service, everything we do to create business success revolves around understanding our customers, creating a product or service that satisfies their needs and delivering that value in a way that builds a lasting relationship with our customers. There are few industries that are more competitive than airline travel. Imagine a business where the products and prices can change every day and customers can review all competing offers at the click of a button. Now imagine having to satisfy those customers, numbering hundreds of thousands each day, when you have to pack them on a tight schedule into a metal tube and safely carry them across hundreds or thousands of miles. On a good day this can be a Herculean challenge, while on a bad day uncontrollable factors like the weather can turn even the best service into a bad experience. Each day here presents thousands of face-to-face customer contacts and decisions that impact customers, all of which decide whether a customer comes back and some of which can become headline news. Into this pressure cooker insert your key competitive tool: 30,000 employees who somehow manage to keep the planes flying, move the bags, ticket, guide, seat and care for passengers, some of whom are already upset for any number of reasons, all done on a moment-to-moment schedule. Then when that plane takes off they turn around and do it all again and again and again. Yet despite all this, these employees sing on the planes, love one another and many would not want to work anywhere else. Now you’re beginning to get a sense of the spirit, the Southwest Airlines spirit.

To learn more about this remarkable company, its people and their incredible spirit of service, we spoke to Colleen Barrett, President of Southwest Airlines, who is known as the heart of this spirit among the people at her company. Colleen generously shared her time with us and we want to thank her and all the people at Southwest Air who helped make this interview possible.

Prof. Allan Cohen, Prof. Jay Rao and Insight staff

Full Interview: http://www.babsoninsight.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/868