Customer Experience Matters – 3 Lessons Learned from United Airlines’ Recent Operations Breakdown

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This has been one of the most operationally challenging weeks I’ve experienced in my entire career.

The above quote comes from Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines. It was part of a letter he wrote right here on LinkedIn. The week he referred to is June 24 - 30, 2023 - a time marked by unprecedented flight demand and reduced workforces.

Combine this with extreme weather conditions and an inadequate business infrastructure to support the surge in demand and you have a perfect storm of operational woes.

Although all airlines struggled in some way to navigate the challenges sparked by a storm system that swept over a third of the U.S., United Airlines had a particularly difficult time keeping up. According to FlightAware, 47% of their flights were delayed and 15% canceled during this "operationally challenging week."

It begs the question...

What Happened?

The answer to this question depends on who’s asked. According to Kirby, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) played a huge role. They currently have a shortage of traffic controllers and crew schedulers. This placed a particular strain on United’s hub located in Newark, NJ (part of the metro New York area).

Yet, other airlines recovered quicker than United.?

Captain Garth Thompson, head of the Air Line Pilots Association unit at United said, “United’s travel disruptions this week stem from one source; company senior management’s inadequate planning an insufficient investment in the airline infrastructure.” (source: CNBC).

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There’s much blame to go around and perhaps a 5 Whys exercise could get to the true root causes. However, considering the strain on United’s ecosystem of passengers, pilots, flight attendants, and other stakeholders it serves as an invaluable opportunity for us to explore preventative measures to alleviate, avert, or avoid such crises altogether.

Let's explore three lessons learned surrounding the importance of being customer-centric and operating your business from that perspective. ?

Lesson #1: Hire & Train Competent People

Choosing the right people to interact with your customers is a big deal! Don’t understand the power of performing due diligence in crafting job descriptions. They ensure you attract and recruit people who possess the ability to empathize, have pleasant sounding voices and can tolerate talking on the phone and/or directly interacting with customers who’ve been placed on hold for unusually long times, will go a long way in customers feeling respected, valued, and less angry in times of conflict.?

Lesson #2: Provide Ironclad Training & Develop Well-Crafted Scripts

To the best extent possible, create uniform greetings and answers (to commonly asked questions) to assist in training your staff on how to treat your customers, especially during a companywide emergency.

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There’s nothing worse than calling the same customer service line only to be placed on hold for hours only to speak to different representatives who either provide different answers to the same question or insufficiently answer the questions, if at all. Scripts should be written such that there is a careful balance between rigidity and flexibility – interaction should not come across as robotic. You can think of a script as a “verbal process.”

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Typical scripts include:

• Customer greeting
• Transferring a call
• Escalating questions to a Manager/Supervisor
• Requesting customer feedback
• Ending a call

Lesson #3: Document Disaster Recovery Processes

The best way to ensure your staff knows how to address questions, escalate issues and route calls is to document processes. Remember, a process is nothing more than the sequential steps to follow to ensure a certain result.

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A well-documented process not only includes detailed steps but also all technologies involved in facilitating excellent customer service. These processes should be backed by both disaster recovery and business continuity plans with the ability to capture real-time, voice of customer data.

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Customer service delivery hinges upon the technologies used. Therefore, technology should support these processes, not hinder them. Assigning key metrics to assess the performance of customer service is key to understanding the current state of a situation for the sake of elevating to an improved future state.?

The Optics of It All

There’s a popular expression,

It’s not always how say, but how you say it.

In the case of United Airlines, it was not only what was said but what was done and how it was done. With customers being the lifeline of any business, how we treat them can literally make or break our companies.

Things happen and sometimes, despite best efforts, certain events like severe storms are unpredictable and unavoidable. Customers are more likely to be understanding if they are treated with respect, provided transparent communications, and given assurance that your company is doing everything possible to restore order and resume normal operations.

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Emotional intelligence, if imbued from senior leadership down to customer support, can go a long way in letting customers know that they are in fact valued and can even in some small way, soften the blow caused by certain inconveniences.

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This may all seem so obvious but is imperative to stress especially when leaders and company spokespersons come across as insensitive and tone deaf. Just look at what happened when Kirby took a private plane to a destination while thousands of United's customers were left stranded, many sleeping overnight inside airports. Let’s continue to learn from these public examples, heed the warnings, and vow to do whatever it takes to let our customers know how valued they are.

*This article contains elements from an original piece I wrote for Equilibria, Inc.’s blog. If you found this article helpful, then subscribe to this weekly newsletter to continue receiving strategies, tips, and tactics to enhance your company's operations.

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About the Author

Alicia Butler Pierre is the Founder & CEO of Equilibria, Inc. – an operations management firm specializing in business infrastructure for fast-growing small businesses. She’s a software inventor, author of the two-time Amazon bestseller Behind the Fa?ade: How to Structure Company Operations for Sustainable Success, and host of the top 2% Business Infrastructure podcast.

Alicia’s also an adjunct instructor of Lean Principles at Purdue University and serves as the USA Chair of the G100’s Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises. The Process Excellence Network recognized her as a Top 50 Thought Leader in Operational Excellence. A chemical engineer turned entrepreneur, she’s advised, designed, and optimized processes for companies including Shell Oil, Coca-Cola, and The Home Depot.