David Lewis, Managing Director, VantagePoint

Southwest Airlines' enigmatic CEO, Herb Kelleher, has stated - We don’t have a Marketing Department, we have a Customer Department. And we don’t have a Personnel Department, we have a People Department.

This is an inspiring statement that summarises the priorities of the only airline to have produced a profit every year for the last 30 years.

The management and employees at Southwest Airlines all clearly understand that a successful business is all about people delivering value to people. The fact that they all have so much fun in doing so is probably the key reason the airline has been so profitable. The essence of the brand is irreverence and travellers in the southern United States have flocked to an airline that has made airline travel affordable, easy, fast and fun.

The airline first flew in mid-1971 and has reinvented airline travel. Southwest has been the principal driving force behind the steady decline of ticket prices since deregulation. Its rock bottom prices combined with dedicated fun-loving staff has been the recipe for consistently full planes and committed customers that continue to re-book Southwest.

Planes have been painted as killer whales (a joint initiative with Sea World), a typical company truism is “Hire people with a sense of humour,” and inflight meals are never served – just 60 million bags of peanuts a year. Flight attendants have been known to hide in the overhead compartments and pop out when customers go to store their belongings. The receipt for the flight ticket purchase doubles as the boarding pass and no seat numbers are allocated. Make it easy and make it fun permeates the whole business model.

The airline flies lots of short trips and gains profitability by optimising the number of flights a plane can fly each day. To do this, they have pioneered the quick turnaround of planes between flights, dropping from the industry norm of up to 45 minutes down to 10 minutes from landing to take-off again. This initiative reduces operating expenses by up to 25% and the company states their lightening fast turnaround time isn’t the result of tricks, but the result of dedicated employees who have the willpower and pride to do whatever it takes.

This internal dedication and willpower is found in one of the first places employees at Southwest look for direction about customer service - their mission statement. It's not some obligatory wall hanging displayed to impress customers but instead a living, breathing document that provides guidance to every employee. It has two simple aims – it directs employees to express their individuality as they take care of customers and to become lifelong learners who take care of the company and each other. In full, it reads:

Southwest Airlines is dedicated to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride and Company Spirit. We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect and caring attitude within the Organisation that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.

It is highly evident that this airline that employs in excess of 20,000 people has the customers’ best interest at heart. Everyone is fixated on customer service and it is not unusual to see pilots giving ramp agents a hand or senior management handling baggage. They all understand that in order to deliver a consistent brand experience for customers, they must all live that brand promise internally. And the example is set by the very top management, the leaders of the company.

Will Murray, from the UK thought leadership company, Team Murray, believes that to succeed today you need robust, honest and complete customer-centric brands. His Brand Spirit initiative lists the following customer-centric factors for success - be a customer fanatic, be totally involving, be consistent, be different, be truly desirable, don’t take the piss and stop being a product champion. Become a customer companion. I'm sure Will Murray would hold Southwest Airlines up as a truly customer-centric brand that meets these factors.

Southwest Airlines proves people do business with people and it's possible to live a brand, have fun, be different, be consistent and, as a result, please customers on the way to profitability. Read the book “Nuts! Southwest Airlines Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success” for even more inspiration on how your team can live a brand promise that will grow your business.

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VantagePoint is a leading marketing management consultancy that provides best practice strategic marketing advice for its clients and assists them to develop pathways for finding, building and keeping profitable customers. VantagePoint offers a complimentary monthly e-newsletter that challenges and probes local and global marketing issues and provides readers with customer driven strategic marketing insights and resources. The VantagePoint e-newsletter can be reached at VantagePoint