Delivering remarkable customer experiences is a fundamental characteristic of successful businesses. How do they do it? Well a key factor is certainly centred around engaging, empowering and enabling their front line people to make it happen! It’s something I talk about and encourage in my seminars and conference speeches and one of the businesses I regularly highlight as a business that is exceptional at this is Southwest Airlines.
They actively encourage their people to create customer delight by interacting and engaging with their customers in individual and unique ways. No scripts or monotonous announcements, but real stuff full of personality. Here are just a couple of ‘announcements’ their cabin crew have been heard to make…
“There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane.”
“Your bags will be available on carrousel x. if you do not find them, they will be available in 2-3 weeks on eBay.”
“In order to enhance the appearance of your flight crew, we will be dimming the cabin lights.”
To see an even better example just watch the video below. It’s Southwest flight attendant Martha Cobb entertaining her passengers before a flight to Salt Lake City recently in a ‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different way!
So, 3 questions for you….
- How ‘Engaged’ are your people in making this stuff work in your business?
- How ‘Empowered’ are your people to make it happen?
- What do you do to actually ‘Enable’ them to help make it happen?
