I travel a lot for my business. It has gotten to the point where I can identify what restaurants I want to eat in and where they’re located in a particular airport. I have also found myself wandering the gates of airports looking for a restaurant that I cannot find, and then realizing that I wasn’t in the airport I thought I was in!
And while I travel on a few different airlines, my favorite tends to be Southwest Airlines. At first glance this may sound weird to you, since Southwest is known as a “low-fare” carrier, they don’t offer you assigned seating, the seats are all the same; a flight attendant once told me, “It’s all first class here!” There is nothing fancy about what they do, yet Southwest consistently tops flier satisfaction surveys, and continues to do well in a highly competitive industry.
Why?
I think Southwest continues to succeed because of these factors:
They know what their customers want
They give it to them
They allow their people to have fun
Let’s look at all of these items.
The first 2 they know what their customers want and they give it to them. Southwest customers want low fares, free check-in bags, decent snacks, points that are easy to earn and redeem, free in-flight entertainment and a friendly crew. (Well, at least this is what I want!) So, Southwest gives it to their customers.
I remember the first time I lined up for the Southwest “cattle call” boarding process, my thought was, “How janky!” But now as I have watched just how efficient the Southwest boarding process is compared to other airlines, it makes sense. I’m willing to give up a seat assignment for the other elements of the experience, because it’s pretty much what I (and other customers) want.
I flew another airline not too long ago and to watch the inflight entertainment meant I needed to download an app, and then download a viewer and open it through a browser I don’t often use. After ten minutes I still couldn’t watch anything.
On my most recent Southwest flight I just turned on my laptop and clicked on their website and voila-I could watch Alfonso Ribeiro (remember him??) on multiple episodes of “Unwrapped 2.o!” Super easy.
Southwest is famous for the aircrews that sing and dance and joke their way through the pre-flight safety briefing-and I love it that they do it. In the past that was always such a boring, corporate, sterile presentation that no one wanted to watch-and now many other airlines have infused some personality into their own safety briefings (I will give a shout out to Delta who does do some funny ones!)
The point isn’t the funny demonstration-it’s that the culture of Southwest allows their employees to be who they are. I have flown on many flights where the crew didn’t do anything funny or out of the ordinary-and they’ve been just fine as well. I love that they allow their people to infuse themselves in their work-it’s what makes it less like work and a little more fun.
In your leasing office, right now, what is one thing you can do to ensure that you are:
Giving your residents/customers what they really want?
Infusing some fun and personality into what you do?
It really is worth it!
