More Airline Customer Service Centers are Going Remote

Southwest is the latest airline to make their customer service agents work remotely.

Southwest Airlines recently announced its plan to make all customer service agents remote by Sept. 1.

The more than 3,200 customer service agents making the move to remote work focus primarily on reservation and trip changes. Many of Southwest Airlines’ corporate employees have a hybrid model — but this change would require agents to work fully remote.

Southwest Airlines released the following statement regarding the announcement:

“Evolving to a fully remote workforce brings increased flexibility, both in attracting and hiring new Employees from across the country, and in scheduling current Employees who have worked at record efficiency in a remote work environment.”

Other airline customer service departments that work remotely include most of Alaska Airlines and all of JetBlue Airways. Airline companies that don’t currently offer remote customer service work include Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines. None of those companies have indicated any changes regarding remote work are happening in the near future.

So how will this affect Southwest Airlines’s quality of customer service? Probably not negatively. Its agents are currently working out of the airline’s headquarters in different cities – which means they weren’t talking to customers face-to-face to begin with.

If you’re thinking about making a remote or in-office change to your customer service department, the experience of the customer should always come first.

In Southwest Airlines’s case, nothing much changes for the customer: They’re still talking to an agent over the phone. What does change, though, is the employees’ experience — which can attract new talent and happier employees. That, in turn, can create better experiences for customers.

Airlines are still struggling to hire through the “Great Resignation,” on top of still recovering from the pandemic’s challenges to the industry. This move can make Southwest Airlines a more attractive place to work.

That can mean shorter wait times for customers to get on the phone and more time agents can spend with each customer. Customers, in this case, are people worried about their flights that may be to visit family members for the first time since the pandemic began, or to an important presentation for work that their careers depend on.

Spending more time helping those people only improves the quality of their trips. When your employees don’t have flexibility in their schedule or they’re dealing with staffing issues, that might not be the case.

It may be able to put your customers at ease, too. Southwest Airlines’s new move should serve as a reminder that there are win-win situations for your employees and your customers.