A passenger who was tragically traveling to attend her father’s funeral has shared an amazing response from a customer service agent at Southwest Airlines who wrote a personalized response to her post-flight complaint and even agreed to fully refund the cost of her daughter’s ticket after she decided not to travel.
It’s precisely this kind of customer service that has given Southwest the power to call itself “the airline with heart,” but with investor management firm Elliott all but changing everything else about the Dallas-based carrier’s business model, could generous, human service be next on the chopping block?
I’m Crying!!
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The passenger shared her story on the popular social media platform Reddit, explaining that she had to buy last-minute tickets to travel with her children to attend her father’s funeral.
Just hours after booking her tickets, the woman was at the airport to catch her flight, but by this point, one of her daughters had decided not to travel. Thankfully, however, a curbside agent said she could get a refund on the ticket if she spoke with a Southwest employee inside the airport.
Fearing, however, that the TSA lines might be long, the family headed through security and then approached a Southwest agent at the gate. Unfortunately, the agent appeared dismissive and didn’t provide much help, although the woman held out hope that he might cancel her daughter’s ticket and arrange a refund as had been promised.
But by the time the family had landed in Phoenix for a layover, an email from Southwest was already waiting in the woman’s inbox. The ticket had been forfeited, and the money had been lost.
At that moment, the woman wrote a quick email to voice her frustration to her surprise, she received a heartfelt response from the airline.
“Thank you for contacting us regarding your recent experience and for being a valued Southwest Airlines customer. We understand this has been an exceptionally difficult time for you and your family, and we want to assist however we can,” the response started.
“Regarding your daughter’s ticket, we apologize for any misunderstanding or miscommunication at the time of check-in about the process for canceling her flight. Additionally, we apologize this process was not made clear to you beforehand. We certainly understand the urgency of your travel plans and want to resolve this issue so you can focus on being with your family during this time. With that being said, we’ve issued a full refund of your daughter’s ticket to the original form of payment.”
The email then touchingly added: “We know that nothing can ease the sadness of your loss but hope we have addressed your concerns here satisfactorily. We appreciate you choosing to fly with Southwest Airlines and hope to welcome you onboard again soon under happier circumstances.”
The response stands in stark contrast to the reply a grieving mother received from an automated customer service system used by American Airlines in 2023 when the computer bot decided that the distraught mom shouldn’t be entitled to a refund for a ticket she had bought because it was a Basic Economy fare.
The woman had been forced to send the death certificate for her son to American Airlines in an attempt to get a refund on a flight she had booked for her late son before he died, but the customer service system sent a generic response that didn’t even address her loss.
The system was introduced months before the woman had her distressing interaction with it and is designed to send generic replies to complaints without any human involvement or oversight.
Codenamed ‘Fast Eve,’ the system is meant to kick in when AA’s customer relations department can’t keep up with the rate of emails being received in order to get the backlog back down to a manageable level.
The system is, however, meant to detect inquiries that would require a human response, such as a bereavement, for example, although this clearly doesn’t always work.
But could Southwest’s personal approach fall victim to the kind of cost-cutting implemented at American Airlines? After all, activist investor Elliott has ripped up much of Southwest’s traditional business playbook, having no fear in eliminating the things that many passengers feel make Southwest what it is.
That’s certainly what many people who responded to the original post on Reddit fear, saying that Southwest’s famously human customer service could look much like the kind of inadequate service that’s typical of other US airlines.
