Southwest Airlines: Grounding customer e-mail traffic

E-mail and web forms are assiduously omitted from the customer service mix.

The Site

Southwest Airlines was the pioneer of low-budget shorthaul air travel and is now the most consistently profitable and admired of US airlines. Its website is primarily a schedules and reservations service for its 58-city network, though investor relations and company information are readily accessible.

Anyone looking to check or alter a reservation, contact customer service or enquire about their shareholding is directed to a Contact SWA page from within sections of the site (there is no universal ‘Contact’ option). Users are then offered a choice between a telephone number – toll-free for all but customer relations – and a postal address.

Two paragraphs at the foot of the Contact SWA page explain that the airline does not accept e-mail “not because we don’t care. It is because that style counters our commitment to Customer Service”. The “accurate, professionally-written answers” that customers “deserve” take time to research and investigate, it says in promising that every letter is responded to in the order in which it arrives.

The Takeaway

Just as Southwest bucks the trends for airline performance with its 32-year run of profitability, so its website stands out for turning its back on e-mail and web forms as part of the customer service mix. Why? While Southwest generates 50% of ticket sales online, its industry-leading customer complaint record – the best among US airlines for 12 straight years, it proclaims – tells it to leave its phone-based system alone.

Were it to get into e-mail responses, its customer care record would almost certainly suffer. Providing high quality e-mail customer support is very difficult, as witnessed by surveys showing how shockingly bad it is among many companies, and by the efforts of other high volume e-commerce sites – most notably Amazon – to deter people from sending a message.

That Southwest is offering an explanation for its policy is excellent (and rare). The problem is that it is so mealy-mouthed. If Southwest is prepared to research “accurate, professionally-written answers” to a letter, why not to an e-mail? The answer must be that it knows tiny numbers will be bothered to write a letter compared with those who would send electronic messages. E-mailing is just too easy for the customer.

Companies without Southwest’s hard-won position may feel the pros and cons stack up differently, but following its route is better than providing a lousy service. Just drop the spin, be open, be slightly contrite; your customers will appreciate that.

First published on 27 January, 2004