Southwest Airlines Leaders and Employees Make Surprise Calls to CS&S Customer Representatives

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On Tuesday, Customer Representatives from Southwest Airlines’ Customer Support & Services (CS&S) Department—the Employees who assist Customers who call Southwest—were surprised by the calls they received.  

As the Vice President of Customer Support & Services, I had the opportunity to participate, and enjoyed talking with Representatives on calls.While these Employees are used to showing legendary Southwest Hospitality over the phone to Customers who often have complicated situations, they weren’t expecting to receive phone calls from Fellow Employees and Southwest Leaders, including Southwest CEO & President Bob Jordan, COO Andrew Watterson, and SVP Operations & Hospitality Steve Goldberg, with words of encouragement and gratitude. As the Vice President of Customer Support & Services, I had the opportunity to participate, as well, and enjoyed talking with Representatives on calls.  

These calls were part of an event called “Heart 2 Heart Connection” at Southwest’s Corporate Campus in Dallas. The event included more than 300 Employee volunteers who completed nearly 1,500 calls to 714 Cohearts, a term Southwest uses to describe coworkers, to brighten their days.     

Southwest CEO & President Bob Jordan“I wish I could tell everyone of our 75,000 Employees ‘thank you’ for all they do,” said Southwest President & CEO Bob Jordan. “Our Culture and our People set us apart, and to me, our Culture is simple. We hire great People who are low ego, and they look to serve others before they look to serve themselves. That’s what I heard on the phone today.”  

In addition to making phone calls to Customer Representatives, volunteers at the event also sent chat messages to encourage more than 80 Source of Support (SOS) and EComm/Chat Representatives who field outreach from internal teams. 

These Representatives transitioned to working in a remote Customer Service environment in 2022, and we designed this event to share our Southwest Culture with them, no matter their location. 

“I was the recipient of one of the calls,” said Liz R., a Customer Representative. “As a new hire, I can’t even begin to tell you the lasting impact this call made on my day, as well as the impact on my future. I was WOWed from day one and it keeps getting better!”