The Shop.org Annual Summit session with Southwest Airlines executives this morning was really two keynotes in one. Before Marketing VP Kevin Krone spoke about how the company leverages social media to connect with its customers, President Emeritus Colleen Barrett talked about the company’s corporate culture and their mantra to treat employees better than anyone else.
Barrett, who was one of the original founders of the company in the 1970′s, seems like a no-nonsense woman with an equally no-nonsense personality. If companies treat their employees well, she believes, the employees will treat passengers well and the shareholders will be rewarded. End of story.
Want to keep your associates happy? Here are a few pieces of advice from Barrett: Give your employees the authority to make good decisions, embrace your corporate culture as a way of life, and exercise a little…umm…unconventional wisdom. (Hint: Don’t buy into that old adage that the customer is always right.)
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[...] and truly customer-centric organizations know when to support an employee over the customer. Watch a brief clip of her discussion at the recent Shop.org Annual Summit for some of her keen wisdom on empowering employees and [...]