On the declining Southwest image mentioned, a lot of it is due to the fact that among other ways to save the airline money to continue being the only profitable US carrier, they no longer have separate departments handling calls. It's one-stop shopping, you may think you're dialing Rapid Rewards, but the representative you get just finished taking a general reservations call, which before that just took a baggage call, which before that just took a travel agency call. The training is shoddy and ambiguous and they hardly give you the tools to assist the customer is a respectable manner. Which to piggy-back on that aspect, they are making senior agents take retirement, taking with them their knowledge and probably their greater respect for the job they are doing, so that the airline can hire a ton of people at a starting rate drastically lower than what the senior agents are being paid. It's no excuse, and it's a shame that Southwest has allowed this drop in their service.
I agree with jimworcs that any frequent flyer program is a sham, and Southwest just took longer to jump on that band wagon. And good luck ever getting through to their customer relations department via phone. That's another example of them consolidating different departments specializing in different areas, to one group of standardized service with not enough people to handle in the influx of complaints. The only reason I believe that Southwest doesn't get more complaints than they do, is a lot of time people know what they're getting when they book with Southwest, so when they're wronged they don't feel as though they should speak up. And Herb is probably drunk, since you asked.
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