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OVERVIEW:
In partnership with United Airlines, this project delved into the future role and tools of customer service representatives (CSRs) amidst a shift to customer self-service as the norm for air travel. As Lead UX Researcher and Service Designer on the project, I provided generative and evaluative insights as well as a systems-level lens to the development of AiR Agent - a three-touchpoint enterprise system that allows CSRs to parse complex air travel policies and bring personalized assistance to customers anywhere in the lobby, by leveraging artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
METHODS:
Contextual inquiry Interviews Journey mapping Jobs-to-be-done Concept tests Service design
DURATION:
4 MONTHS
2024.04 - present
ROLE:
Lead UX Researcher and Service Designer, collaborating with 3 Product Designers
DELIVERABLES:
Insights report, design artifacts, design systems, service blueprint
THE ELEVATOR PITCH
Generative Research
What challenges do airline CSRs face today when assisting customers in the lobbies? I led contextual inquiries & interviews at Seattle and Chicago airports, and learned that customers engage with various self-service options to different degrees, creating a more complex and fluid passenger flow compared to traditional queuing systems. This made CSRs’ work more ambiguous and challenging as a result.
Design Facilitation
What superpowers can CSRs wield tomorrow to help them meet customer needs? I facilitated jobs-to-be-done, journey mapping, and ideation workshops with the team, zooming in and out to consider service-level and touchpoint-level innovations. We landed on a 3-touchpoint system that allows customers to request for help as needed at the kiosks, and for CSRs to prioritize and prepare for assistance while away from desktop terminals To align the team on prototyping, I consolidated our decisions into a systems architecture map and service blueprint as sources of truth.
Evaluative Research
What works well about our idea? What could be improved? I ran 5 concept tests with air travellers and CSRs, which informed additional features to safeguard customer privacy and manage customer expectations while waiting for assistance.
Final Product
AiR Agent is a smart enterprise system that enables United Airlines CSRs to prepare for and personalize each service interaction, creating a more equitable traveling experience for all passengers.
We presented AiR Agent to United Airlines’ leadership in digital delivery and innovation who commended the employee-centricity, customer-centricity and business acumen of the proposal.
- Access customer data on-the-go
- Quickly identify customers who need help
- Parse complex air travel policies and generate action plans for customers
Video Demo
CONTEXT
In partnership with United Airlines, our team set out study the experience of Customer Service Representatives (CSR’s) stationed in the lobby at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) , and explore next-generation internal tools that could aid them in their work.
For 17,000 CSRs
Enterprise tools used by employees have not been elevated to the same standards as customer-facing tools.
For 165 million customers
As the first point of contact for passengers arriving at the airport, the experience of CSRs are intricately tied to customer experiences.
For the business
Interventions in this space would support the airline’s strategic pillars, and differentiate it from competitors.
METHODOLOGY & FRAMEWORKS
GENERATIVE RESEARCH
Apr - May 2024
I led the team in conducting contextual inquiries as our primary method of research. A CSR’s work is highly contextual, and we needed to observe their interactions with customers in-situ to truly understand their workflow.
I oversaw research planning, and everyone on the team participated in fieldwork.
Contextual InquiryObserving peak hour shifts allowed us to understand a CSR’s work at its busiest. During non-peak shifts, we chatted with CSRs of various experience levels and learned about their experiences, challenges, and aspirations. We studied both SEA (smaller United Airlines presence) and ORD (United Airlines hub) to validate our observations.
SME Interviews Speaking with tenured CSRs (>30yrs of experience) and local management gave us a bird’s eye view of protocols, regulations, change management, and KPIs. These complemented our field observations.
What is the current experience of a United Airlines CSR at SeaTac?
- Key responsibilities, tasks, and capabilities
- Obstacles when assisting customers
- Resources available to address customer needs
Key Insights
Click ⏵ for details.
1. The CSR’s responsibilities have become more complex.
CSRs went through 4 questions to triage customers as they entered the lobby area, then held back to monitor customers using the kiosks. They have to watch for red flashing lights on the kiosk, or customers looking confused, before stepping in to figure out what assistance is needed. Then, they may still need to return to the service desk to check through complex policies, before providing assistance.Observation at SEA and ORD
2. However, their roles and identities have become more ambiguous
“So why are we talking about customer service if you're just going to be able to do it by yourself one day? If you take care of your customers... they'll get to keep coming back forever, you know?”- A tenured CSR (>30yrs of exp)
3. Nonetheless, in fight-or-flight mode, customers seek out a human touch.
“People don’t want to talk to the live agent - they [assume it’s a call center] in India or Philippines - they want to speak to a local agent here.” - A CSR on morning shift (8yrs of exp)
View Generative Research Report →
DESIGN FACILITATION
Jun - Aug 2024
It was abundantly clear to us that we needed to maintain a human touch based on our generative research. To further distill our research into actionable design implications and opportunities for ideation, I facilitated jobs-to-be-done and journey mapping workshops.
Jobs-to-be done Sort through the myriad of tasks that CSRs tackle everyday to identify key motivations
Journey mapping Hone in on current bottlenecks and the type of future experience we wanted to deliver, while remaining tech-agnostic
Key JTBD:
We faced two major challenges during brainstorming: navigating conflicting feedback from various stakeholders, and the sheer scope and complexity of the service journey.
Step-jump-leap framework We used this framework to categorize our ideas into different horizons of innovation. It helped us to navigate conflicting feedback from course instructors, who urged us to innovate without constraints, and our clients, who valued feasibility and viability. It also helped us to connect some of our ideas from step to jump to leap timeframes, building up a roadmap toward a far-future state.
Storyboarding & bodystorming Storyboarding using low-fidelity sketches and mid-fidelity illustrations helped us to identify key moments in the future experience we wanted to deliver. Then, acting out the desired experience with placeholder props and defined roles helped us to refine key interactions between the CSR and customer and interactions with our touchpoints.
We mapped out the service journey, but to manage scope for our short design timeline, we focused on three key touchpoints for prototyping:
Click ⏵ for details.
A meeting point for a service handshake - Streamlined Kiosk
Super sidekick for personalized assistance - AI Assistant
Super vision - AR Glasses
While teammates led prototyping, I organized our system-level decisions into a systems architecture map and service blueprint as sources of truth documents.
Systems architecture map Mapped out the key capabilities, limitations and considerations for each touchpoint, as well as data transfers
Service blueprint Mapped out the entire service journey from from frontstage actions to backstage systems, including key success metrics
View Artifacts from Design Process →
EVALUATIVE RESEARCH
Aug 2024 (5 days!)
We had just 3 weeks to execute on our design. Nonetheless, we all felt that concept testing was necessary, especially since we were missing the customer perspective. In 5 days, I planned, recruited, moderated and analyzed 5 concept tests, gathering critical insights that informed our final designs.
Concept testingStoryboard walkthrough with mid-fidelity screen mocks, with 3 recent air travellers (through personal contacts) and 2 CSRs (through LinkedIn). We opted to conduct a concept test as the client would likely conduct their own usability testing if the solution was adopted.
- What touchpoints of the prototype resonate / don’t resonate with participants?
- What do they think of the key customer journey?
- Overall, do CSRs feel that the proposed prototype can support them to deliver timely and personalized assistance to customers?
- Overall, do customers feel that the proposed prototype improve their airport experience?
Key Changes to Design
Click ⏵ for details.
1. Consent for audio input to AI Assistant
2. Balancing communication and privacy
3. Show position in queue to manage expectation for wait time
OUTCOMES & NEXT STEPS
With AiR Agent, we envision a more empowering work experience, a more equitable travel experience, and a more scalable enterprise solution for stakeholders.
Empowering AiR Agent brings back the personal touch of customer service in air travel to help CSRs re-establish and build long-term relationships with United Airlines’ customers. The system clarifies current ambiguities in their workflow and simplifies the process of finding the right course of action for the customer, allowing the CSR to stay in the moment of interaction. By reimagining the role of a CSR to a “personal travel ambassador” to travellers, we hope to uplift the satisfaction and pride of United Airlines’ 17k frontline CSRs.
Equitable By leveraging customers’ personal smartphones as the main customer touchpoint, it eliminates the need for customers to learn to use new tools on the spot just for the sake of lobby transactions. AiR Agent can also allay the anxieties of infrequent travelers who may be unfamiliar with airport policies, procedures, and layouts. They would be able to receive and refer to resources directly on their smartphone from CSRs after the initial service interaction, ensuring that this personalized assistance stays with them even after leaving the lobby.
Scalable With the kiosk stripped down to a streamlined form, it allows for easier software and firmware updates without needing to overhaul the physical device as often. Though out of scope for the current project, we also imagine the kiosk to rechargeable and moveable, allowing for flexible deployment depending on passenger volume. Moreover, the versatile AI and AR assistant can scale to support a CSR in addressing a wide range of customer needs - from translation to guiding customers through flight rebooking transactions.
When we presented our explorations to United Airlines’ leadership in digital delivery and innovation, they especially commended these facets of the design:
Kiosk as a transitory device They were aligned with our team’s decision to retain the kiosk as a transitory device instead of removing it altogether. We discussed how it serves as a visual confirmation that the customer is in the right place, taking the right steps, to afford a customer more confidence in a busy lobby environment, even as the bulk of transactions are moved to a personal device.
CSRs as champions They appreciated us bringing to light the ambiguity of the CSR role amidst a push for customer self-service, and how we positioned CSRs as champions of the airline in our project.
Professionalism Our project sponsor, Jay Ahuja (Product Manager, Lobby Experience) highlighted our team’s professionalism in approaching the project, and how we aligned our approach with United Airlines’ strategic pillars.
As next steps for this project, we would explore…
Responsible AI usage In using AI to parse customer profiles and flight policies, how might we avoid biases? What types of customer data should be used, or not used?
Dissuade overuse of help request As our sponsors do not expect the CSR workforce to grow, how might we dissuade customers from adopting a learned helplessness mindset, and potentially overusing the help request function?
REFLECTIONS
Pivoting methods to meet participants where they are
We initially considered conducting additional interviews with CSRs outside of their shifts. However, considering their long shifts and the highly contextual nature of their work, we focused our energy on the contextual inquiry and interviewing CSRs in between service interactions instead.
We also initially planned to conduct rapid iterative testing and evaluation with the ground team at SEA, as a way to close the loop on our generative research outcomes and to ensure that their feedback were taken in before we presented our designs to the client. However, our planned dates coincided with the Crowdstrike outage. Considering that the team may be overwhelmed by the ensuing service recovery, we quickly pivoted to concept testing and other sources of feedback. Given the chance, we’d love to revisit the ground team and continue working with them on this.
Advocating for frontline staff
Businesses tend to focus more resources on elevating customer experiences, and even the people my team spoke to to gather feedback frequently assumed we were working on improving customer - not employee - experiences. We quickly learned to be explicit about the challenge area we were focusing on. Throughout the project, my mind always goes back to the conversations we had with veteran CSRs, who wondered what customer service should even mean these days with self-service as the norm. I really appreciated this opportunity to advocate for their aspirations and experiences.
Navigating complex systems
Going into this project, air travel was way more complicated than we had imagined. Our team gravitated towards internal employee tools as our focus to challenge ourselves as growing designers and researchers, and it was a rich learning process. I got to leverage my systems-thinking brain, honed from 6 years of work in the public sector. As a lifelong nerd, I also loved untangling the complexities of this new space.
Structure for processing feedback
Throughout the project, we spoke with many people - our client, our program instructors, senior designers, senior researchers, CSRs, management, travellers, etc. We received a ton of feedback that were often conflicting, reflecting the different stakes that they held about the project space and their priorities between desirability, feasibility and viability. Our team developed a structure for ingesting feedback that allowed us to have open conversations about our own priorities and principles. We were then able to quickly agree on a balance of innovation and business considerations that was comfortable for us, all while keeping the CSR’s experience at the core of our ideas.
