The Challenge.

United Airlines rolled out a new product called Basic Economy to be competitive with discount carriers offering a no-frills seat. This product required fees for additional services including a checked-in baggage. Although the airline worked to proposition clear communication on these impacts, this was a new experience for United travelers arriving at the airport.

The friction point upon the release of this new product was that passengers were continuing through the lobby and security on to their gate with a carry-on that incurred fees. They would arrive at the gate to board, only to find that they had to pay an additional fee. This held up the boarding process - impacting both customers and the airline’s on-time performance from an ideal experience.

The Approach.

Creation of this living document is collaborative in nature. We started internally leveraging our field airport research gathered and then outward at EWR with CSR agents using design thinking. 

1. Collected and evaluated two years of research to construct CSR opportunities to setup known operational factors and bright spots for the workshop

2. Conducted quantitative and qualitative one on one interviews at EWR

3. Conducted first design thinking workshops with CSRs

4. Synthesized with affinity maps with align

5. Socialized with leadership on the findings

Why it was necessary.

Within our IT releases, we have been iteratively building multiple releases and apps with very limited awareness to understanding impact to CSRs. We want to ask the “how, what, where, why and when’s” of our operations directly from the CSRs themselves that identify the right problems with the right solutions. 

Among the common rush to get releases out, it is challenging to understand what has the biggest impact to a customer journey. For example, we may first tackle a problem that might mitigate a negative scenario when we should have solved it before it gets worse. 

It is also challenging in our design development to support variations to our products among various persona needs and ethnographic impacts. 

To innovate for the future, we must constantly pivot toward a north star vision that can be socialized in journey maps and service blueprints. These documents identify, strategize and evolve holistic projects what United Airlines operations can achieve. 

What we learned.

Listening to our CSR teams is just the first step. They are truly the front line to every customer experience in departure management. 

What we heard from agents was that they wanted to assist customers in three areas:

1. Recognize

2. Accommodate

3. Assist

Our Departure management team through collaborative design thinking discovered that our systems are too rigid. The team began to identify that current services are limiting and that we need to prototype on new technologies that can support new services.