Tony Roach

Tony Roach is EVP and Chief Customer & Brand Officer at Southwest Airlines. He measures the efficiency of customer experience with a simple question: does it make the airline easier to do business with? 

Behind that is a broader view of loyalty. Roach sees trust as something a company has to keep earning through reliable experiences, less friction, and proof that it will come through when customers need it most.

After Southwest’s 2022 holiday disruption, rebuilding trust was the airline’s top priority, which required transparency and proving to customers that Southwest had addressed the operational issues behind the disruption. For Roach, loyalty is built when a company consistently makes things easier instead of asking customers to work around its problems.

He finds that disrupted customers need context about what’s happening, options for what they can do next, and evidence that the airline cares, putting control at the center of recovery. Real-time communication, self-service, trip-management tools, and better support for employees all serve the same purpose of helping customers understand what’s happening and move forward without unnecessary effort.

Roach finds that the lasting strengths of a great CX are flexibility, value, service, and the way employees make customers feel. He thinks technology provides value by removing uncertainty, reducing effort, and giving both customers and employees more control over difficult moments.