Asking someone to play a role? Ask plainly.

Today I was booking a trip on Southwest.com for my two sons (and I) to head home for their summer visit with their grandparents. They’re 6 and 2 years old.

When asking for the ages of the travelers, Southwest asks for travelers by category. Curiously, the “full fare” category is labeled “Adult Age 2+”. Now, my youngest is mature for 30 months, and might arguably identify more states on a map than several people whose opinion is showcased on prime time game shows, but I’m not sure I’d describe him as an “Adult, 2+”.

Seniors are identified as a separate category, exclusive of “adults. I could see and can understand a member of The Greatest Generation getting offended that my LEGO aficionado and my Elmo fanatic are considered adults, while they are classed otherwise.

I don’t know the operational reason behind this. I’m guessing that the term “full fare” may not be as marketing friendly as “adults”. It’s unnecessary. Companies are better off in a service environment in describing their process and its inputs as plainly as possible.

Since the only people that are subject to a reduced fair are those under two or 65+, identify the category as “full fare travelers”, defined as anyone 2 to 64.

Don’t forego accuracy for a term that sounds a little more appealing. Say what you mean. At worst, the simplified language will reduce confusion. At best, it will earn a measure of respect for being forthright with customers trying to fulfill their role in the service encounter.

Changing customer behavior? Choose carrot or stick carefully.

I got an email from my insurance agent, informing me that I hadn’t signed up for electronic delivery of my bill. It turned out that I was still receiving paper bills and, sensibly, they wanted me to shift to paperless transactions.

But they didn’t just rely on an appeal to my sense of morality to get me to make the transition.

To motivate me to change my behavior, they told me that if I weren’t to change my billing to the paperless option, I would lose my 10% ebilling discount (that frankly, I was unaware I had.)

There are a lot of ways to get customers to change their behavior. In many cases, change is as easy as letting customers know what behavior you expect of them. In others, the only way to effect the change in customer behavior is align the customers benefit with it. Some companies gently make it worth the customer’s effort to change. Southwest Airlines is a master at this, for example, getting customers to the gate early through their unique boarding process and keeping them close by with comfortable chairs and electrical outlets.

Another way to align customer interests with the desired behavior is to punish the alternative.

In this case, my insurance company suggested that a benefit I already receive would be lost if I failed to act the way they wanted.

Whether the discount was real or not is almost immaterial. I was going to have to pay an additional 10% if I didn’t make the small change in behavior they were asking for - enough for me to go online and make the shift.

Both methods of changing customer behavior can be effective. Of course, Southwest’s behavior changes are subtle enough that most don’t even perceive them until they’re ingrained, and their efforts often win them fans along the way. My insurance company on the other hand? Well, the threat was definitely perceived. And while it didn’t upset me any (it might others) it certainly won’t endear them to me either.

Will the Rewards be 'Rapid' for customers or Southwest?

In a past post, I complimented Southwest for the simplicity of the Rapid Rewards purchase frequency program. As far as programs that create fiscal bonds with customers go, theirs is one of the most tangible, credible ones I've seen, and one of the few that delights with unexpected surprises. In the airline industry in particular, it stands out as differentiated and unique in value.

So when Southwest announced program changes, including a move from the simple 8 round trips = 1 free flight formula to one that grants points for flights based on the price of the fare, I wasn't initially enthused. I tend towards clarity & simplicity. One of my long standing criticisms of other airlines' programs (several of which I am a member) was that 15,000 miles was as vague to me as 25,000. I never have a sense of how close or far I am from attaining the next reward. With Southwest, however, I always knew whether I was 2 flights or 4 flights away. While I would look for a reason to get that last Southwest round trip, I've never looked for an opportunity to travel an extra 1,500 miles to gain another carrier's reward. A flight is more easily characterized as an experience (transaction, if you must) than an aggregated distance.

Gary Kelly's comments in announcing the changes were one of the few instances I've seen corporatespeak supersede customerspeak for Southwest. He discussed how much time & money Southwest spent on developing the new program ($100M over 5 years) and how the new program should expand revenue and put it on par with American and Delta programs. It was also the first time I've ever noted Southwest outwardly aspiring to a status of the legacy carriers. It draws a stark contrast to ads where Southwest portrays the protector of travelers' pocketbooks, while the legacy carriers are the personification of greed.


The idea that the new rewards program will open rewards purchases up to Hawaiian, Alaskan and international travel are intriguing. One of Southwest's operational and marketing strengths has been how they have maintained resolute focus on the domestic US traveler. To serve them, Southwest created a terrific rewards program that kept customers flying the airline. If Southwest customers aren't interested in international travel, it could be a an additiona benefit without much value.

Still, Southwest has a history of delighting me. When they've made changes, they've often been ones that put more burden on the customer in terms of helping their operation, but that also bring additional customer value, even beyond planes that take off and land on time.

Because of a terrific track record, I'll stay open to these changes as they become more evident. But if the program deteriorates value for customers, Southwest will find itself judged, maybe not in competitor ads, but in the very real court of customer opinion.

Not your fault, but your failure to recover.

On a busy travel day today, the lines everywhere were longer than expected – at the parking lot, at check-in, (though Southwest reacted well by bulking up on agents to service the rush) and at security. (The TSA contractors were not responsive to the unexpected demand level)

Planes flew on time, but travelers had to hurry more than they usually would, and those that usually had time to spare found themselves rushed.

As I sat in my “cattle car” seat in row 2, one of the last exasperated travelers boarded the plane in a sour mood.

When he was greeted with a pleasant “Good Morning” by the flight attendant, he looked past her, down rows of full aisle and window seats, and grumpily replied, “It doesn’t do any good to pay for premium boarding when there’s 900 people in the security line.”

A great example of how, in service environments, the mere presence of other customers can impact the experience.

In this case, a customer played his role, paying $10 for premium boarding so that he didn’t have to check into a flight at 6:15 AM on a Sunday to get the seat he wanted.

In this case, he found himself foiled by variability of demand for the service he was using. The unexpected volume of travelers (though not quite the 900 he claimed) put him far enough behind schedule that he wasn’t able to take advantage of the premium service he asked and paid for.

This led to a negative outcome that Southwest didn’t create. Still, the customer’s perception was one of unfairness of outcome. In his eyes, he paid for something and it didn’t work.

What is a service provider to do in this case?

Most hide behind fact that their process was fair, replying to these complaints that the service success is contingent on the customer playing their part in arriving early enough. Since he was late to the gate area, they couldn’t hold the seating option he desired and proceeded with boarding. In this case, the Southwest attendant hearing the complaint didn’t react at all.

Of course, whether the process was fair or not doesn’t much matter.

The customer has a negative perception of the value of the offering, and will be less likely to use it in the future. Given that this traveler is likely a reasonably frequent traveler, this is an opportunity to create long-term loyalty (and revenue) by delighting him - recognizing that although it wasn’t the fault of Southwest, the traveler started his day with a negative perception of the experience.

Extra care & attention to his needs while en route, a book of drink tickets, heck even a 5-pack of free premium boarding upgrades – given that their cost is essentially $0 – all likely would have improved a negative perception about a service failure southwest didn’t create.

Even though your service process may create fair outcomes, remember to pay attention to how you respond to customers who have negative results – whether you caused the issue or not, these are still your customers to help recover and delight.

Apparently February is for LUV-ers.

Anyone who follows this space knows I’m a fan of Southwest marries their business model with their service ethos.

But in the February issue of Southwest Spirit, Gary Kelly misses badly in his “Gary’s Greeting” section entitled, “The Meaning of LUV”.

In it, Gary states that February is meaningful to the LUV airline, and goes on to describe what LUV means to him (apart from the airport abbreviation for Love Field and the SWA stock ticker) as:

1. LUV is going the extra mile for our customers.
2. LUV is letting bags fly free.
3. LUV is having FUN.
4. LUV is giving back to our communities.

A critical piece of corporate symbolism stands for a fiscal reward differentiator that didn’t exist as recently as two years ago? I’m hoping Gary didn’t read this before it went to press and undermined one of the more tangible brand positions in any service market. Here’s my rewrite. It may seem “too honest”, but it reflects what Southwest customers know anyway:

1. LUV is running the most operationally efficient airline in the world. Sometimes that means minor inconveniences in the execution of the experience, but we think they’re worth it. With the money we save through sound execution, we take care of the people who matter to us. We pay employees well, make money for shareholders and pass savings along to you through lower prices.

2. LUV is co-opting our customers to co-produce the service experience. We’ll go the extra mile for you, but want you to go the extra mile for us too. We’ll ask you to do more work on our behalf than anyone else will, but you’ll get cheap fares, planes that take off and arrive on time, and the occasional drink on us. We think it’s a fair exchange.

3. LUV is having FUN. You can’t work is hard as we do and not be having fun. You work hard making our shared experience successful, so we’d like you to have fun too. Our atmosphere is as casual as possible because it is the most efficient way to get things done, and we’re not particularly fond of boring people, unless they pay full fare and don’t ask for extra peanuts.

Too straightforward? Maybe, but if the Southwest culture is defined on the pillars of A Warrior Spirit, Servant’s Heart, and a Fun LUVing attitude, this seems much more consistent than suggesting that the corporate symbol stands for a value-added service they don’t happen to charge for, a differentiation the fell into as their competitors made bad decision follow bad decision.

Service innovation wears a straitjacket.

Last night I watched a rerun of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations Vancouver episode, drawn in by images of familiar restaurants and street corners from my 4 years living in on Vancouver Island. In the episode, he visits Sooke Harbour House, a renowned restaurant unique in its commitment to local ingredients, sourcing 95% of ingredients from within a 30 mile radius.

Bourdain makes an interesting comment to chef Ed Tuson, observing that their self-imposed straitjacket must be creatively enabling. Tuson provides an example of having to "create" coconut for a dish using shaved carrots, ginger root, flavors from petals of some local flowers and a few other ingredients.

A severe self-imposed restriction forces him to see ingredients not as they are, but in new terms of what they could combine to become.

Businesses have the ability to do the same thing.

Yesterday I wrote about how great service companies win fans by choosing one service attribute to be absolutely obsessive about. Obsessive focus on that self-identified business model driver is the same sort of obsession that Bourdain talked about using to enable creativity.

Consider Southwest, whose early obsession with minimizing gate time by turning planes in 10 minutes forced them to look at their ground operations completely differently than other airlines. When Southwest had made all the productivity improvements they could from its employees, they turned to their customers as productivity coproducers. Cattle call seating, travelers helping tidy the planes, the online check-in process, even the plug-ins and club chairs – all are intended to get travelers to help Southwest turn a plane as fast as possible.

In return for productivity gains, Southwest is willing to provide coproducer value. Southwest knows that separating the loading of luggage and travelers speeds the departure process. In return for the inconvenience of checking, they reward travelers with no fees for checked baggage. (And flights that arrive on time)

It's likely that few of these innovations and productivity gains would have been realized if they hadn't obsessed about service model to the point that it forced them to think creatively about expanding their productivity resources.

For great leaps in service innovation, embrace the obsession straitjacket to creatively look at the service model the way that those without it can't.

Obsession is a service virtue.

Businesses have their own central tendency, moving toward the mean of the market they serve.

It makes sense. Capture the largest available market by making your service as good as possible in all aspects. Communicate how good you are at everything, and gain a large enough portion of the ‘everyone’ segment to make you successful.

But a service company representing ‘everything’ can’t represent anything specific, making them average and unmemorable. Presenting its bland, median self and demanding the same of line employees, companies make it impossible to engage customers on beyond a superficial level.

Great service companies, however, are obsessed about one aspect of their business. Maniacally obsessed. To the point that any 'good' businessperson sees their behavior as going too far. What outsiders don’t grasp is that they have chosen a service aspect representing the core of the problem they want to solve for their customers, and focus all their energy on it.

Southwest obsesses about the operational efficiency involved in turning a plane, deploying every available resource to that end – technology, marketing, employees, and even customers. Wisely, they use a casual, fun environment as the mechanism to make all the work you’re doing for them tolerable.

Ritz-Carlton obsesses about the individualization of the service experience.

FedEx obsesses about time, and what it represents in terms of reliability.

Early Starbuck’s was obsessed with the in-store experience of the “American 3rd place”. Late Starbuck’s seems obsessed with quarterly numbers. The interstate is lined with Starbucks off-ramp signs, and you can buy 20 branded products in your local supermarket. The people who wanted the experience long ago ceded the territory to freelancers who don’t want to conduct business from their basements.

Service is intensely personal. It can’t represent an “average of good” and expect to be seen as exceptional by anyone. For it to be meaningful, it has to discriminate. It has to be exceptional for some, and exclude the needs of others.

Great service has to be obsessive.

We know you have to follow a script, and we do not appreciate your apathetic delivery

Most airlines seem to spend much of their innovation effort actively undifferentiating their service, me-tooing every good idea anyone in the industry has. (Most of which – over the last 20 years at least – have originated from Southwest)

Today’s example: It seems everyone has co-opted a version of the phrase, “We know you have a choice of airlines when you fly, and we want to thank you for flying with (us).”

It was novel when we first heard it, but in replication, the effect has worn off.

The phrase itself has become a negative, partly because the deliveries are almost undistinguishable, and partly because we can associate poor air travel service experiences with the lifeless delivery of this now-hackneyed line.

If you’re going to thank customers for being with you, it HAS to be heartfelt, and it should feel different from everyone else who does it.

On some Southwest flights, flight attendants sing their appreciation. Sometimes good, sometimes awful, it at least shows that they feel strongly enough to not do it by rote.

Thank you doesn’t have to be said at the end of the flight. Midwest makes cookies as their calling card. They could say during the inflight service, “We like you so much, we baked you cookies”. Different, but the message gets across.

Airlines could visibly reward passengers randomly. “We love all of you, but we’re going to buy everybody in row 12 a beer today for flying with us.”

The execution of the message is almost irrelevant – the point is that an insincere “thank you” is as damaging in a service environment as it is in our personal lives.

Lose the line, lose the script. It doesn’t have to be creative, it just has to be heartfelt.

Sometimes the carrot, sometimes the stick.

I commented earlier this week about the way Southwest Airlines understands the contribution customers can make to business productivity, and promotes that behavior in with incentives to make them more reliable as a service and more profitable as a business.

The online check-in process, asking customers to help clean up on late arriving flights, no fees for checked baggage, are all examples of this.

While these customer behavior modifications are often done using carrots in the form of rewards, today I experiences that they can also use the stick, when necessary, to suggest appropriate customer fulfillment of role.

I’ll preface it: I was not a good Southwest customer for today’s flight, starting with last night. I didn’t check-in online 24 hours ahead. I got busy this morning, and in fact, didn’t check-in until I arrived at the airport, 45 minutes before my scheduled departure.

I got the “C” boarding pass I had expected, but was surprised when the pass had no number. “Do you not give numbers to us delinquents in ‘C’?”, I asked the attendant who took my luggage. “Oh, that means that you’ll have to see the gate agent.” she replied. Faced with a new process, I was for the first time a little nervous about a Southwest flight.

At the gate, I learned that the last three boarding passes for every flight are printed without a number, so that the gate agent can inform late travelers about the merits of early online check-in, and that while not against the rules, counter check-in 45 minutes before a flight is frowned upon. They even went to the surprisingly honest extent of explaining that given the many flights that are oversold, Southwest likes to resolve the oversold situations as early as possible, and an early count allows them to do so.

Southwest works hard to make sure customers know their role in providing a quality service and contributing productivity while doing so. Usually, they use tangible rewards and monetary incentives to reinforce the behavior they desire. But it’s also refreshing to see them also reinforce the behavior by gently warning customers about what happens when they don’t participate fully as a Southwest customer.

Tie your cost accountant to a chair.

One of the main reasons why the US airline industry is composed of Southwest Airlines and everyone else is their fundamental understanding of customer behavior, its impact on their service operations, and how to promote consumer behavior that makes them a more efficient business.

Most famously, it was the airplane seating process – beginning as the “cattle call” and later evolving through multiple iterations of online check-in that have morning travelers setting early alarms the day before they fly, just so they can log in to get that highly prized ‘A’ section seating assignment.

Truthfully though, it is evident in everything Southwest does, which is one of the reasons they are consistently able to stay on time for departures, stay inexpensive and ultimately, stay profitable.

Keeping in mind the customer role the service is also why Southwest has been able to avoid the misstep that almost every other airline has made in charging customers for checked baggage.

Set aside, for the moment, the vehemently negative reaction the traveling public has had to the checked baggage fees. (A reaction Southwest takes GREAT pride in stirring up through their advertising)

In charging $15-$30 for checked bags, the other airlines have demonstrated a lack of understanding about their core service operation.

Planes are making money when they are in the air, not when they’re at the gate. Turn times and on-time departures are critical to an airline’s ability to make money. Everyone who has stood in the aisle while a 110lb non-gender-specific human tries to launch an oversized, 50lb suitcase into an overhead bin 3 feet above their head knows instinctively that the only way to get a plane to lift off on time is to completely separate the loading of people and luggage. (In fact, airlines employ professionals for just this reason, though I imagine their CFO’s at this very moment to be looking at some metric measuring bags per handler per hour and wondering why productivity is slipping.)

By charging extra for checked bags, the airlines ensure that everyone tries to cram as much as possible into the largest carry-on bag they can get away with, causing the overhead compartments to be crammed beyond capacity and requiring overflow processes of their own, all of which creates more time at the gate.

And who does this policy screw, apart from the airlines that created them? Not the business traveler, who can find room for that oversized suit bag if they take long enough. It’s the family of four, with 2-3 legitimate bags, maybe a car seat, that has no alternative but to check and pay. Of course, these customers are now flying Southwest, so it’s not the other airlines’ problem anymore.

By demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of how customers in a service environment pull a significant lever on their business’ productivity, most US airlines have incented exactly the wrong consumer behavior, created consumer discord and driven ever more business directly to their most able competitor, Southwest.

Leaves me wondering what's next from this group.

You’re not worthy! You’re not worthy!

The Fairmont chain of hotels has a reciprocal agreement with various airlines to provide air mile recognition for hotel stays.

I didn’t know about this, because my airline never told me, even though they have enough data from the airline miles credit card to know that I stay in a variety of hotels reasonably frequently, including the Fairmont chain.

Nevertheless, upon seeing my airline’s logo prominently displayed on their rotating advertisement board with the claim that they would provide air miles for Fairmont service experiences, I inquired at the front desk if I could have air miles for my current stay.

“No” was the kind reply. (a reply I’m getting used to at the Fairmont) “Your stay is covered by a conference rate, and as such, the exchange of miles for stay nights does not apply. But I see you travel often, and if you like, we could set you up so that future stays would be credited.”

Don’t bother. Yes, I travel reasonably often, but most often in association with a conference, so by your definition, my business will never be good enough to qualify for the mileage credit.

Most loyalty programs are awful, and this one is no different.

What constitutes “loyalty” is defined from the company perspective, rather than the customers. I don’t care that I’m on a conference rate. The conference gave me 8 hotels with rates to choose from, and I chose yours. At the end of the day, I am selecting Fairmont because of (a clearly misplaced) affinity for the brand.

Most rewards programs are not tangible enough for users to understand when they are applicable, when they are not, how to claim a reward-eligible service encounter and how to redeem it. Whether this is by design (service companies wanting the benefit of loyalty program activity without associated cost of redemption) or by a benign-but-poor communications strategy, the result is the same customer confusion.

Loyalty and rewards programs have been so “me-too’ed” that there is little differentiation, and so little point to selecting one vs. the other. Their benefit is quickly approaching negligible.

With the exception of Southwest Airlines.

Fly 16 times, get a free trip. Clear, tangible, egalitarian. Kansas City-to-St. Louis is the rewards equivalent of Miami-to-Seattle. They show legitimate excitement when I get a reward ticket, and when I redeem it. In terms the Fairmont probably wouldn’t understand, a stay is a stay is a stay. Thank you for your business. Please give us more, and under any circumstances.

Unless your intent is to design a loyalty program that identifies true customer loyalty activity and rewards it accordingly (and with the appropriate level of excitement for a customer that is choosing your brand time-after-time in a sea of options), save yourself the effort. Go to your largest competitor’s website, copy the text of their program, execute a find / replace to insert your name where theirs currently is, and call it a day. I get the sense that most companies engage in this anyway.