The second thing is that the company focuses on what they have determined is their primary aim: getting planes into the air.
Too many of Southwest’s competitors focus on something else; there are too many to mention here, but the reality is that with too many things to focus on, nothing gets focused on.
Southwest realizes that to make a profit, the planes have to be in the air, taking people to their desired destination. A plane that is not in the air is not making money.
Third, the company has an efficient organization. The fact that they fly only Boeing 737 airplanes is well known but apparently, until recently, not well respected by their competitors.
The efficiencies of having a single kind of plane to service, fuel and fly makes a tremendous difference for all involved. The learning curve is shorter and less steep.
The company knows who their customers are. Years ago at a conference a regional manager for Southwest told the audience that the ideal customer was not always a business person, although they served that demographic, but a traveler who had some leeway in planning the trip and was flexible about flight schedules. This could be a business person but was more likely to be a vacation traveler or a senior citizen.
Fifth, the company does market research by taking the time to watch customers during the airport experience. By sitting in an airport terminal and observing how different people deal with real and imagined obstacles, the company can take that first hand knowledge and use it to make it easier for those customers to be and stay customers.
As an example, those that use wheelchairs and walkers have an easier time today because someone witnessed firsthand what those individuals had to endure. The competitors of Southwest might see this differently, as a problem and not an opportunity.
Most organizations can learn something from Southwest. Do you hire the right people, for the long term? Is your primary aim crystal clear to every employee? How can you make your organization more efficient? Do you have a solid grasp of your ideal customer? Do you perform research by seeing how your customers “experience” your company? Answering these five questions could make a good company a lot better, very quickly.
Which one will you address first?
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