The Social Employee: How Great Companies Make Social Media Work by Cheryl Burgess & Mark Burgess

Author:Cheryl Burgess & Mark Burgess [Burgess, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Published: 2013-08-02T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

How the Southwest Way Creates Competitive Advantage

When we asked Dana Williams, Director of Integrated Marketing and Communications at Southwest Airlines, whether her company was a social brand, we could almost hear her shrug her shoulders on the other end of the line. “We’ve always been a social brand,” she said matter-of-factly. “We just evolved and have more channels to do it now.” This confidence, this absolute certainty of brand mission, is apparent in everything the company does. Because of this, it should come as no surprise that Southwest Airlines has helped lead the social employee charge into the twenty-first century.

The company’s earliest incarnation came in 1967, when Air Southwest Co. was incorporated under founders Rollin King and Herb Kelleher. From the beginning, King and Kelleher infused the company with a single driving philosophy: the business of businesses was people. To keep those people coming back, the company had a responsibility to take care of its employees. Happy employees treat customers with the dignity they deserve. Even with this dogged sense of brand identity, Southwest has faced challenges in building a unified corporate culture that is largely unique to the airline industry. The following success story examines the methods Southwest Airlines has employed to keep the concept of social business fresh, the challenges of communicating with a multigenerational employee base spread across the continent, and the techniques the brand employs to ensure customer satisfaction through a thriving employee culture (see Figure 9.1).

Figure 9.1

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