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Southwest Airlines Applies MIS to Customer Service

Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of long-distance travel is dealing with unexpected flight delays, which can be caused by weather, aircraft mechanical problems, overbooked flights, or other unexpected circumstances. Delays strand travelers away from their destinations for hours or sometimes even for days.

Some airlines make attempts to notify passengers about flight delays as soon as they become evident in hopes of saving the passenger needless waiting. Southwest Airlines has been doing this for years. Southwest prides itself on clever, unique approaches to customer service that it calls The Southwest Way. The airline makes special efforts to satisfy customers that have been inconvenienced. Fred Taylor is Southwests Senior Manager of Proactive Customer Service Communications. The New York Times has nicknamed Fred Southwests Chief Apology Officer. Its Freds job to make sure customers who experience difficulties are left with options that leave them feeling satisfied. When Fred found out that Southwest was given a low score for its flight notification service in a Wall Street Journal poll, he took action.

Although information systems are typically credited for providing business managers and decision makers with the information they can use, they also supply information that customers can use. Information generated by MISs and DSSs can act as a service to a companys customers, such as with Google Search, or as a value-added, such as UPS package tracking. Another example is Amazon, which uses information about purchases customers have made on the Amazon Web site to recommend other products that might interest them. Fred Taylor of Southwest Airlines wanted to empower his customers with up to-the-minute reports on flight information. Not only would his system notify travelers of flight delays, but also of gate changes, opportunities to upgrade, cancellations and rescheduling, and other information that can assist travelers with their preparations.

Fred decided that the best way to inform passengers of preflight information was by phone. Southwest does not have access to all passengers e-mail addresses or cell phone numbers, so it cannot depend on e-mail or text messaging. It does, however, have access to all customers phone numbers. Fred and his team reviewed a dozen services that offer automated phone messaging systems. It settled on Varolii Corporation, which specializes in helping companies stay in touch with employees and customers through personalized automated phone messages.

Fred and his team had to develop an MIS that pulled information from its reservation database provided by Sabre reservations systems and from Southwests own database that manages flight information. The output of the MIS needed to be airport containing passenger names and phone numbers of those who had reservations on flights that were changed, along with details about the disruption. This information had to be delivered in a format that Varoliis system could take as input. The reports also had to be generated quickly so that passengers received the notification as it was delivered to Southwest personnel. In the early testing of the system, Fred received a call from a flustered gate attendant who had a line of passengers asking about a gate change notification. The passengers had received notification before the attendant! After that, a slight delay was programmed into the system to make sure that the information was disseminated to the right people at the right time.

As Fred and his crew rolled out the new system, they included a failsafe to make sure no misinformation was mistakenly sent to passengers. Each notification requires a human review prior to sending the information to Varolii for phoning. Once a notification gets approved, customers phones ring within seconds. Upon answering, the customer hears a chime, indicating an automated message, and a personable voice that proclaims, This is Southwest Airlines calling. The message continues with details on flight information and advice on how to proceed and ends with the offer to connect the customer to a service representative.

Southwest is now collecting travelers cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses so it can extend its service to other forms of communication. Its Chief Apology Officer continues to explore new ways to apply information systems to making customers happy.

A. What were the unique aspects and requirements of Southwests customer notification MIS?

B. How does this information assist Southwest in gaining a competitive advantage?

C. In what other ways could airline information systems assist with increasing customer satisfaction?

D. Many banks use Varoliis phone service for notifying customers who are late making loan payments. What are the benefits and drawbacks of using automated communications systems compared to human communication?