Southwest Loyalty
Five weeks to give Southwest Airlines’ Branding and Loyalty executives a clear view of their loyalty experience today, and where to take it next.
OVERVIEW
A point of view on the future of loyalty.
Our Innovation & Design team designed a workshop for Southwest’s Branding and Loyalty leaders, pairing an honest look at today’s Rapid Rewards experience with recommendations and wireframes for what could come next.
MY ROLE
Lead UX Designer · Product Design
TEAM
Lead Product Designer, 2 UX Product Designers
TIMELINE
5 weeks
SKILLS
Experience strategy · UX design · Journey mapping
TOOLS
THE CHALLENGE
Turn an open-ended brief into one hour leaders could act on
Southwest asked Visa for a point of view on the future of loyalty, with no defined problem to solve. We had five weeks to prepare and one hour with 12 senior Branding and Loyalty executives. Loyalty spans everything from joining to redeeming, so the real challenge was choosing what to show: a focus narrow enough to discuss in an hour, and concrete enough for leaders to act on.
Goals
Surface the friction in today’s Rapid Rewards experience
Show best-in-market examples of loyalty enrollment
Share wireframes and recommendations for a better experience
Invite leaders to consider the strategy that could meet their loyalty goals over the next few years
MY ROLE
Leading the experience strategy
As Lead UX Designer, I owned the framing of the brief and the experience work, partnering with a Lead Product Designer and two UX Product Designers. I ran the audit and competitive review, chose enrollment as the focus, built the first wireframes in two days to give the team something concrete to critique, helped shape the executive workshop, and mentored a junior designer through the concepts.
DISCOVERY WORKSHOP
RESEARCH
Where the experience broke down, and who does it better
I audited Rapid Rewards across desktop, mobile web, and the app, mapping friction from enrollment through earning, recognition, and redemption, then benchmarked loyalty leaders to show what good looks like at each stage. The friction clustered at the start of the journey: Rapid Rewards was hard to find, hard to understand, and slow to join.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
01 · DESIGN CONSISTENCY: NORDSTROM
02 · SIMPLIFIED ENROLLMENT: PANERA
03 · PERSONALIZATION: SEPHORA
KEY DECISIONS
Two decisions that shaped the strategy
These choices kept the work focused on what leaders could act on, rather than everything loyalty could become.
Anchor on enrollment
Enrollment was a concrete journey executives could react to in one hour, and the entry point that connected consistency and personalization.
Pair evidence with a future state
The audit and competitive review made the case. Wireframes made the recommendations specific enough for executives to evaluate.
THE SOLUTION
A clearer path from first visit to member
We proposed a new way into Rapid Rewards, built on three levers: design consistency, simplified enrollment, and personalization. Each lever answers a specific finding from the audit. Below, each one is shown as the existing experience against our proposal, with the wireframes we brought to the workshop.
PROPOSED END-TO-END FLOW
01 · DESIGN CONSISTENCY
Make the program easy to find and understand
Use one consistent design language across platforms
Introduce Rapid Rewards to first-time visitors
Explain how the program works, what members gain, and what to do next
EXISTING SOUTHWEST EXPERIENCE
PROPOSED EXPERIENCE: DESIGN CONSISTENCY
02 · SIMPLIFIED ENROLLMENT
Ask for less, reward sooner
Collect only the information needed to join
Show value early with a welcome reward and a personal confirmation
Let members add details later, or when they book their first flight
EXISTING SOUTHWEST EXPERIENCE
PROPOSED EXPERIENCE: SIMPLIFIED ENROLLMENT
03 · PERSONALIZATION
Shape the experience around each member
Use travel type and destination preferences to shape relevant offers
Address members by name and reward participation with a welcome offer
Offer Southwest Community to extend the brand and deepen engagement
EXISTING SOUTHWEST EXPERIENCE
PROPOSED EXPERIENCE: PERSONALIZATION
LONGER TERM: BEYOND ENROLLMENT
The same preferences could later shape a personalized homepage, timely recommendations, and a profile members control.
IMPACT & OUTCOME
A focused conversation that led to more work
The session gave Southwest’s Branding and Loyalty executives a shared view of today’s friction and a concrete future state to react to.
A shared view of friction
Plans for UI updates
Follow-on engagements
“Honestly…really over delivered. You brought a great team, great partners and deep thought leadership. I appreciate how you challenged us directly, and pressed on opportunities across many aspects of our program to get better and lead.”
CORBITT B., DIRECTOR, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
REFLECTIONS
Make the problem concrete, and people align
Strategy work moves when people can see the problem and the trade-offs. Two lessons I carry forward:
Influence, then commit
I made the user case to multiple approvers, then fully backed the agreed direction so the team could move as one.
Plan for pivots
Next time, I’d set decision ownership and pivot checkpoints at kickoff, so the team can stay flexible without losing context.
