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Case in point
Frontline employees help drive a unique brand of service quality.
"...Above all, employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest customer."
-from Southwest Airlines' mission statement
ALTHOUGH NEARLY EVERY corporation says its goal is to provide excellent service, evidence shows that the service quality of many organizations lags below customer expectations. This is especially true in new e-commerce companies. One of the fundamental reasons for these service quality problems is the lack of commitment and skills of the frontline employees who are interacting with customers.
What is missing is a strategy called internal marketing, which involves treating frontline, contact employees as internal customers in the effort to encourage these employees to provide excellent service for the end customer. In today's tight labor market, internal marketing is viewed as an even more important way to obtain, develop, motivate, and retain skilled and energized employees who in turn provide high quality service.
Southwest Airlines provides an excellent example for the successful execution of internal marketing strategies. Its success in the highly turbulent airline industry has in large part been attributed to its people, who provide consistently excellent service quality. Examples of that service include five "triple crown" awards in the '90s for lowest customer complaints, most ontime arrivals, and highest quality baggage service. While maintaining a top safety record, the company also has among the lowest employee turnover rates in the industry. In the most recent rankings by Fortune magazine, Southwest Airlines and Cisco Systems were the only companies to be rated in both the top-10 most admired companies and the top-10 best places to work. Also, in a recent Consumer Reports study of the nine major domestic airlines, Southwest was the only airline to be rated as offering below-market prices and above-average service quality.
Perhaps what is most exemplary about this airline is that it uses high employee morale and service quality as the means to its excellent profitability. Southwest has been profitable every year since it first turned a profit in 1973 and was the only major domestic airline to be profitable in 1991, the worst year ever for the airline industry. An...