Working to Achieve Customer Satisfaction
by Letting Our People Succeed

Battered by Bad Weather, Air Traffic Delays and Labor Disruptions,
United Airlines goes on the Offensive to Win Back Customers.

Larry De Shon

Anyone who is a frequent flyer knows that most airlines have not been having a good year. And right at the top of the list is United Airlines.

"Last year, three bad things happened to us all at one time," said Larry De Shon, vice president of customer satisfaction for the Chicago-based carrier. "We had record delays in the air traffic control system. We had record labor disruptions. We had record weather storms. It was, as one of our customer service representatives said, the perfect storm!"

Any one of those things in isolation, De Shon said, could have been handled. "But when all hit us at the same time," he said, "it really dug us into a deep hole and it's one that we're trying really hard to get out of."

Despite the fact that customers, stockholders, employees and the government all have a bone to pick with United, the airline is determined to make things right, starting with the customer. "Our company is more energized around changing the customer experience than we have ever been before," De Shon said.

De Shon heads a relatively new organization. "It's not that we didn't care about customer satisfaction before - we had various organizations working on customer service - but we never had a group isolated in the company and focused on the long-term strategic planning around the experience the customer was having."

To improve the customer experience, De Shon's organization developed four key strategies. The first is called, "the customer does not wait" and is dedicated to reducing the time spent at the airport. The centerpiece is improved check-in procedures including self-service check-in which involves electronic ticketing. At their hub in Chicago, De Shon said, they will go from 56 check-in positions to 115, but 85 or 90 of them will be self-service check-in. Some of these self-service units will be near the parking, others at the curb.

De Shon said they are also looking at things like Smart Card check-in which will allow the customer to book reservation online, drive through a security checkpoint at the airport which would alert United that the passenger has arrived, walk through the jetway door and be electronically checked in. "That's a truly seamless non-stop boarding procedure," he observed.

United is looking at other ways to cut down the "wait" time including having customers get rid of their bags more quickly, perhaps in the parking garages, getting their boarding pass at the very first point of contact, and being able to use multi-door boarding to the aircraft. The latter involves working with the manufacturers to redesign the jetway system, De Shon said. They are also meeting with airport authorities to get them into the act on cutting down customer waiting time. "United is really focused on the whole airport environment - the curbs, the concourses, the enplaning and deplaning," he said, "but the airport authorities are also interested in changing the airport experience so they are very receptive to a lot of our ideas."

United's second strategy for improving service is called, "proactively resolve travel failures." De Shon said passengers generally are understanding about flight delays, about mechanical delays and about the weather. "What they aren't forgiving about is how you handle them in that environment," he said. "Their attitude is: Treat me well during that storm, give me some information so I can make some decisions about my travel, help me get on my way, and then I'll forgive you."

Under the old model, De Shon said, we'd cancel the flight, wait for the people to show up at the airport and then work with them one-on-one to rebook their flight. "The new model which we've tested in Chicago and Philadelphia," he said, "has a customer advocate center that, as soon as a cancellation occurs, looks at what space is available on United and other airlines, holds blocks of space, and then turns the information over to reservations which rebooks the passengers - all before they arrive at the airport."

The next step, De Shon said, is to be able to tell the customer, before they get to the airport, that there will be a delay. "We're working on an automated system," he said, "that would enable us to reach the customer as soon as a flight is canceled and tell them they've been rebooked and they're leaving at such and such a time and here's your gate."

Another part of the proactive recovery strategy involves baggage, De Shon said. They have been looking into radio-frequency technology to track baggage for some time but until recently it was too expensive. "We hope to have a test system operating by end of year that will have baggage tags with radio frequency chips embedded in them so that we can track the bags throughout the process," he said. "We even plan to put the system on the Internet so the customers can track their bags themselves."

Another initiative that United is working on, De Shon said, is to develop a database that will include all the information about a customer's needs and preferences but, more important, their experience with United.

"The first application of this customer database," he said, "is something we're calling 'Make Amends.' If there is a service disruption, you'll receive a letter immediately apologizing for the inconvenience and offering compensation if it's due. We'll also give this information to our frontline employees so that when you check in the next time, the service rep will know about it and be able to do something for you to make amends. The same is true of the flight attendants who are eager to change customer perceptions of United Airlines."

The third strategy for achieving customer satisfaction, De Shon continued, is called "customer connectivity." This involves providing the customer better and faster operational information so they can make decisions about their travel. "Information that customers told us they want will be posted on screens in the gate areas," he said. "and updated every 60 seconds so that the customer will know if there is a change as soon as the customer service rep does. We'll even post alternate flights that the customer might want to consider."

As part of this strategy, he continued, United is taking steps to assure that the information for customers is accurate and delivered as quickly as possible. They are also planning to improve wireless connectivity on the ground and eventually in the air so that customers can have access to their office and e-mail while in an airport environment.

The fourth and final strategy, De Shon said, is to "set up employees for success." It's one thing to make changes that benefit the customer and give them more self-sufficiency but their experience with employees must also change, he said. "We need to give our customer service representatives and others the tools they need to be successful in the eyes of the customer."

An analysis of the tasks that a service rep or gate agent must know and be able to do revealed that their systems were too complicated and that many of the tasks had nothing to do with getting the customer on board safely and on time. "We realized," De Shon said, "that we had to redesign our processes, simplify them for both the customer and the employee, and free up the employee to spend more quality time with customers on the more complicated things they need help with."

Among the things they are looking at are ways to resolve complex customer ticketing problems before they get to the gate or even the airport, removing obstacles on e-tickets so more people will use them, improving transactions with travel agencies, and re-engineering the departure process. The latter involves improving the communications between the service reps, flight crews, ground crews, cabin service and catering, and others involved in getting the plane off the ground so that the flight can be boarded and depart on time.

Communications have an important role to play in the changes that United is making, De Shon said, because employees, particularly the customer service representatives, feel threatened by them. Adding self-service check-in, shortening the baggage drop-off process, changing work procedures are all perceived as threatening to their job security.

"We have to make sure that we communicate well, get them involved in the changes and address their concerns," he said. "My hope for service representatives is not to eliminate them but to shift what they do. Instead of being transaction-based, I want them to be more concierge-based in their dealings with the customer. That means we'll recruit differently and train differently. And the whole thing will shift the customer experience, changing their perceptions and expectations of us."