To Win The Customer Loyalty Game, Southwest Airlines And Epic Games Play For Keeps

Southwest Airlines and Epic Games know how to win customers. They play for keeps — to win customers and keep them coming back for more.

The key word in their success is play.

Southwest Airlines has made play foundational element of its culture, encouraging employees and customers alike to have fun and enjoy the ride. Southwest's FUN-LUVing Attitude is an all-in core value fueling its vision to be the world's most-loved airline. Turns out customers love having fun.

The plethora of fun-and-loving stories floating around in cyberspace and on social channels about the customer experience on Southwest clearly demonstrates the company excels at play, fun, and humor. From newlywed surprises to flight attendants who crack jokes during flight safety announcements, Southwest makes customer satisfaction look like child's play. And guess what? Employees love it too — Southwest boasts a rock-bottom 4% voluntary turnover.

Fortnite

Photo credit Cristi Farrar from Pixabay

Play is the business of Epic Games and its off-the-charts successful global phenom Fortnite, a video game which has everyone from rappers, vloggers, and Major Leaguers to your 13-year-old kid talking about buying skins, cracking enemies, and doing victory dances. Fortnite has attracted an astonishing 250 million users worldwide since its Battle Royale version launched in September 2017. How? By focusing on fun.

Sure, Fornite's success can be linked to everything from cross-platform playability, graphics, and its battle royale format to FOMO — the legit fear of missing out. And it's probably "all of the above." But what makes Fortnite unique is its all-consuming obsession with customer satisfaction. Using detailed data and sophisticated analytics, Fortnite is always watching — and always updating — to improve gameplay, pushing customer engagement and customer satisfaction through the roof. Fortnite has succeeded in making customer fun its highest priority, and in doing so clinches the high score for play in business.

But, of course, play is more than fun. No joke! For Southwest Airlines, Epic Games, and other industry leaders and play-makers, play is all business. Play translates to game-changing exceptional customer experiences, strong customer loyalty, robust employee engagement and loyalty, and a healthier bottom line. Why? Because play makes people happy.

The Customer Loyalty Power Play: Happiness

In Yellow Goldfish, co-author Rosaria Cirillo Louwman and I explored the nine ways to find and create H.A.P.P.I.N.E.S.S. in the workplace, looking at how more than 300 companies provide the little extras to contribute to the happiness of their customers, employees, and society. Southwest and Epic Games get priority seating as champions of fun and frivolity, leveraging the idea of play to create customer loyalty — and make people happy.

Play is the fourth factor of the H.A.P.P.I.N.E.S.S. equation, and the fourth in a blog series taking a deep dive into all nine factors that help businesses increase happiness to drive growth, productivity, success, and bottom-line results. Read the first three blogs in the series here:

·     Health - Google, Ben & Jerry's, Cisco And Zappos Show How Napping Is One Way To Health And Happiness At Work

·     Autonomy - If You Love Your Employees, Set Them Free: Autonomy Is Key To Employee Engagement

·     Purpose - How Do Ben & Jerry's, Google And Facebook Boost Employee Engagement And Happiness? They Know Why

Why happiness? Play is a key driver of happiness in the workplace — for customers and employees alike. Happiness is the ultimate WHY, the most sustainable competitive advantage, and the ultimate currency in business. Today's most successful companies prioritize happiness to boost engagement and loyalty.

In Yellow Goldfish, we share how Southwest Airlines has become a leader in customer loyalty specifically through play and by leveraging what Chip and Dan Heath dubbed the power of moments in their book The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. By injecting fun, creativity and recognition into everyday experiences, Southwest's funny flight safety announcements measurably increase happiness and loyalty, delivering a powerful, profitable ROM — return on moment.

At Dutch e-commerce company Coolblue, fun plays a key role in delivering an eye-poppingly enviable 96% customer satisfaction. Its tagline and brand promise "Everything for a smile" delivers fun experiences to surprise and delight customers, raising the proverbial bar on exceeding expectations. From clever packaging and witty product descriptions to truly out-of-the-box thinking like its "wait therapy," Coolblue brings humor into play from e-start to finish.

Finally, the wild success of Epic Games' Fortnite video game is tied its laser focus on the customer experience of play. Developers leverage customer feedback and analytics to respond within days. When their players are having fun, Fortnite is listening. And when they're not, Fortnite is listening. And, let's face it, players are gonna play only as long as it's fun.

This summer Epic upped the ante on play once again with its Fortnite World Cup, its biggest tournament to date boasting $30 million in prize money — plus 40 million players who vied for a shot at the ultimate win. Top prize of a cool 3 mil, by the way, went to a 16-year-old boy from Pennsylvania. To play to win in the game of customer loyalty, have some serious fun! Do the unexpected [like how Fornite shut the game down for two days this week.] Use gamification. Create cool packaging. Crack a joke. Give your customers reasons to laugh and smile. Make them happy.

Remember that old adage about all work and no play? Shake it up and go have fun!

Tweet