Hill & Knowlton posted an interview with Colleen Barrett, President and Corporate Secretary at Southwest Airlines, on its Client Service Insights blog about Southwest’s approach to customer service. It’s a good read, and I wanted to highlight the acknowledgment of the effectiveness and contribution of Southwest’s blog to their customer service excellence from the top of the company.

Below are Colleen’s comments regarding staying current with customer needs:

CSI: How do you manage to stay in touch with your Customers expectations?

CB: There are many ways we can stay current on our Customers needs. One of them is our new corporate blog where we get new insights every day into our Customers psyches. We do market and Customer research; we send our frequent flyers quick online surveys; and we TALK to them when they are in our airports and on our planes. Our Employees know each of them is a marketer of our product, and that any ideas or suggestions they might get from a Customer can be sent right up the chain with little effort or red tape. We maintain a constant line of communication with our Customers, and were working to improve those channels each day.

Southwest posted its own link to this interview here.

– brian