I love Southwest Airlines. They have been the ,most profitable airlines by creating a business model which serves both their customers and their shareholders. Southwest has managed to delight their customers and they are one of the few airlines that actually turn a profit, plus they haven't gone to the nickel and dime your customer model that has been popular in the industry.
The one area they have been weak in is database marketing/marketing automation. The emails my wife and I get from them are very generic. These emails have never been tailored. This is the same in direct. I have a Southwest Visa card and I still get an application direct mail to this day. They also send some of these applications multiple times per week. I tend to forgive because I am not a fan of the nickel and dime approach most other airlines employ.
Out of the blue I got an email that was actually targeted, well I hope it was targeted and not everyone received. They sent me a tier upgrade promotion if I flew 3 roundtrips in a 2 month period. To give a little background, I was flying much more a year and a half ago and I was an A-list, but recently I haven't needed to fly as much and I lost that status. What I hope they are doing is looking to see that I have the propensity to become an A-List and they are betting that I will take them up on this offer.
I happen to be taking a couple of flights in that time period, but I was going to be one roundtrip short. Now this is where the psychology of tier benefits are interesting. In my experience, a company doesn't necessarily get a customer to do something drastically different in their behavior to get to the next tier level. This is true in my case. If I hadn't been taking those 2 other trips, I would not have flown 3 roundtrips to make it to A the rest of the year. But since I was taking those trips and I was going to be close, I decided to take 1 more trip up north and see my stepdaughters. I would not of otherwise taken this trip. So the promotion made them some incremental revenue and has kept my loyalty with Southwest.
This could be a less targeted approach and I just happen to think it is because of my propensity. They send me an email last week reminding me of the promotion ending, however they did not reference I was 1 roundtrip away, so they aren't exactly where they need to be yet. But, if Southwest can put together a strong direct program with their superior business model, then other airlines will have even more to worry about. Here is to hoping they are moving in that direction.