A while back, I wrote about the wonderful experience I had with Southwest Airlines’ customer service department. To quickly recap, I ended up having to change flights after a death in my girlfriend’s family and instead of charging me the fare difference, they honored my original fare as a courtesy. I was floored. Compassion and courtesy are not words I normally associate with airline customer service, but Southwest truly showed its heart to me that day and I even made sure to spend a few extra minutes on the phone with the Southwest rep’s boss to tell them how thankful I was. In the original post, I wrote:

I not only thanked her, I also asked to speak to her supervisor. When I got her boss on the phone I thanked her, too, and made sure they noted how much I valued their compassion and the professionalism of the rep with whom I originally spoke. In the face of tragedy like this, it was so nice to see that major corporations like Southwest Airlines are filled with real people and those real people can act like neighbors even when they’re just a voice on the other end of the phone.

Then yesterday, a postcard arrived in my mailbox. I don’t get a lot of postcards outside of dental appointment reminders, so I was intrigued. It came from Southwest. You can read it here:

For those keeping score at home, that’s a thank you in response to my thank you. Now that’s courtesy. The feedback look is now complete. A good deed led to a commendation, which then led to a postcard thanking me for the commendation, and now I’m writing a post commending Southwest for thanking me for making a commendation. Just think of this as the Escher of airline customer service situations.

Well done, Southwest. Your overall courtesy and generally low fares will keep me as a happy customer for the foreseeable future (until, of course, my next flight is delayed in which I case I will once again say Screw You, Southwest).