{"id":39253,"date":"2013-10-20T15:18:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-20T21:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/20\/southwest-airlines-customer-service-fail.html"},"modified":"2013-10-20T15:18:58","modified_gmt":"2013-10-20T21:18:58","slug":"southwest-airlines-customer-service-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/20\/southwest-airlines-customer-service-fail.html","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Airlines customer service fail"},"content":{"rendered":"
Southwest is known for being customer service oriented and eager to please. \u00a0Which makes today's tale of flight woe particularly irksome. \u00a0I mean, if this happened on United, I'd (unhappily) expect it …<\/p>\n

1. Margie is a Southwest frequent flyer. In fact, she's 4 points<\/i> from making "A-list", the automatic "you always get a great seat queue" status, due to her regular travel back to the corporate mothership in California this past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Margie booked round-trip tickets for this weekend's journey from Denver to Orange County and back for herself, me, and Kay. Knowing she was only 4 points<\/i> from A-list, she only booked "Early Bird" (get automatically checked in, thus get a better spot in the seating queue) for Kay and me on the flight back. She reasonably figured figured after the initial leg out here, she'd be A-list.<\/p>\n

3. After all this happened, I ended up with business travel that meant canceling my Southwest flight here and (sigh) home today. \u00a0<\/p>\n

4. Margie checked by phone yesterday, to confirm her A-list\/early check in status. \u00a0Hey-presto, it turns out that Southwest only updates the A-list status after an entire (round) trip is booked. \u00a0Oops! \u00a0(Okay, I understand enough about systems and processes to understand how that might be the case — it's inefficient, even slightly counter-intuitive, but I understand it.) \u00a0But, no worries, she was assured — she had Early Bird status on her flight. \u00a0(This was less than 24 hours before the flight, so the agent telling her this should, you'd think, be able to tell about her check-in status, but that communication didn't come across.) \u00a0So Margie, assured that she'd have an early seat queue alongside Kay, didn't worry.<\/p>\n

5. Fast forward to this afternoon. While Margie's getting packed, I checked on her check-in. \u00a0And, lo and behold, Kay is checked in at seat queue A60 (and is flagged as Early Bird), and Margie (once I go through the process) shows as C20 (and is not<\/i> flagged as Early Bird).<\/p>\n

6. As we're driving to the airport, Margie calls Southwest to explain the situation and ream them a new one. \u00a0The agent really wants to focus on explaining about the A-list thing, but Margie keeps his attention on the whole Early Bird \/ Not Early Bird thing. \u00a0"Oh, but you show as Early Bird," she's told. \u00a0She demurs, noting that she checked in as C20 and not flagged as Early Bird. \u00a0The agent's response is largely, "Huh," but he claims he can't do anything, but offers her a customer service number to complain to. \u00a0Which, which Margie presses, he admits isn't being manned right now. \u00a0Margie demands to speak to his supervisor.<\/p>\n

7. Same song, second verse. \u00a0She's now been told multiple times that she has Early Bird, and yet there she is with a seating queue assignment, without Early Bird, of C20. \u00a0The supervisor says there's nothing he can do and, upon being pressed, says there's nothing anyone<\/i> can do. \u00a0The supervisor does suggest that Kay can hold onto a seat for Margie; Margie notes that's against formal Southwest policy (no seat holding), but apparently that's what will have to happen.<\/p>\n

And then we're at the airport. \u00a0And Margie's not<\/i> a happy camper.<\/p>\n

Note that all of this was done to someone who has flown so much with Southwest this past year that she'll be A-list once she hits the ground in Denver (and all the systems catch up). \u00a0But apparently nobody in Southwest is empowered to do anything to resolve what's clearly a mess-up on their part (apparently her reservation shows as having Early Bird, but it didn't trigger and it doesn't show when we look at her check-in docs), and the only people she can complain to … aren't working until Monday.<\/p>\n

So that qualifies, in my mind, as a customer service fail. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Well played, Southwest — so much for all that good word-of-mouth Margie's been giving you the past couple of years. So what are you going to do to demonstrate this is not only an anomaly, but that you actually are interested in what a customer thinks about you?<\/i> \u00a0 #southwest<\/a> \u00a0 #southwestairlines<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0 #southwestfail<\/a> \u00a0<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n


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Southwest is known for being customer service oriented and eager to please. \u00a0Which makes today's tale of flight woe particularly irksome. \u00a0I mean, if this happened on United, I'd (unhappily) expect it … 1. Margie is a Southwest frequent flyer. In fact, she's 4 points from making "A-list", the automatic "you always get a great … Continue reading “Southwest Airlines customer service fail”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[445,446,447],"class_list":["post-39253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","tag-southwest","tag-southwestairlines","tag-southwestfail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24557,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/16\/not-so-early-bird-southwest-airlines-email-receipts-suck.html","url_meta":{"origin":39253,"position":0},"title":"Not-so-Early Bird — Southwest Airline’s email receipts suck","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 16-Dec-11 12:07am","format":false,"excerpt":"So we purchased our tickets back in September with Southwest for flying back to California for the holidays. \u00a0Southwest changed in the last year or so from a purely \"first check-in, first on\" with ticket queues, to the ability to buy \"Early Bird\" seating for an extra $10 -- the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11133,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/02\/wdw07_monday_epcot_and_ho.html","url_meta":{"origin":39253,"position":1},"title":"WDW07 – Monday – Epcot and Home","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 2-Apr-07 9:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Concluding our Walt Disney World travelogue ... 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