OVERVIEW:
In partnership with United Airlines to address strategic business goals, this project delved into the future role and tools of customer service representatives (CSRs). 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 Concept tests Service design Bodystorming Jobs-to-be-done Journey mapping
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
HOW THE PROJECT STARTED
In partnership with United Airlines, our team studied the experience of Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Chicago O’Hare International Airport’s lobbies (ORD), and explore next-generation internal tools that could aid them in their work.
Enhancing employee tools was one of the client’s strategic pillars for growth. Our team chose to support this pillar for our Capstone Project as we saw huge potential for interventions in this space to impact employee, customer, and business outcomes:
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.
WHAT I DID
As the Lead UX Researcher on the project, I highlighted an overlooked element in the client’s customer experience strategy - the ambiguous role of the CSR in an era of self-service travel.
By clarifying essential customer-CSR interactions, I secured leadership buy-in on the team’s re-envisioned internal tool system and its potential to improve not only employee satisfaction but customer outcomes.
I achieved this by
Overseeing research design, fieldwork, synthesis and reporting throughout the project.
Facilitating jobs-to-be-done and ideation workshops, and leading agile/scrum rituals
Mapping our intervention at the system-level, leveraging my experience in service design.
METHODS AND FRAMEWORKS OVERVIEW
GENERATIVE RESEARCH
a.k.a. the time I went to the airport at 3am to conduct contextual inquiry
As a CSR’s work is highly contextual, we needed to observe their interactions with customers in-situ to truly understand their workflow. I led the team in conducting contextual inquiries as our primary method of research.
We complemented the contextual inquiries with in-depth interviews with station management and tenured CSRs (>30 years of experience each) to gain a bird’s-eye-view of protocols, change management, and KPIs.
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
Our main takeaway was that customers now 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. They now need to…
- Monitor a larger lobby area for customers who look like they need help
- Diagnose individual customer needs and and provide assistance next to the kiosk and away from their desk terminals
- Otherwise maintain a hands-off approach and not hand-hold the customer through check-in processes
“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 we spoke to with over 30 years of experience
View Generative Research Report →
DESIGN FACILITATION
a.k.a. the time we mocked up an airport lobby on campus to act out our idea
I leveraged my experience in service design and workshop facilitation here to scaffold our ideation, mediate conflicting opinions, and align the team on design decisions to make sure they are grounded in our research.
- Jobs-to-be-done - sort through myriad of tasks that CSRs tackle to identify key motivations
- Step-jump-leap - categorize our ideas into different future horizons to find a balance between innovation and business constraints
- Storyboarding & bodystorming - refine key moments and interactions in the service journey
- Service blueprint - mapped out entire service journey from frontend interactions to backend systems
We took a service design approach to capture the complexity of the entire service journey, but to manage scope for our short design timeline, we focused on three key touchpoints for prototyping.
Touchpoint | Features |
Streamlined Kiosk | - Physical cue for customers to begin self-check-in on their personal devices
- Allow customers to explicitly request for help when needed
- Print physical documents (e.g. bag tag, boarding pass) |
AI Assistant | - Prepares the CSR for assistance by predicting the customer’s needs based on their itinerary and profile
- Retrieves relevant checklists and policies the CSR may need for the interaction
- Dynamically update suggestions throughout the service interaction by capturing voice input, or by manual query |
AR Glasses | - Identify customers and kiosks that need help in a busy lobby through color-coded overlays |
View Artifacts from Design Process →
EVALUATIVE RESEARCH
a.k.a. the time I had to run a concept test in 5 days because of Crowdstrike
We had just 3 weeks to execute on our design, but 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.
We 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 pivoted to concept testing and other sources of feedback.
- 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?
Using a storyboard walkthrough with mid-fidelity screen mock-ups, we gathered feedback from 3 recent air travellers (personal contacts) and 2 CSRs (recruited through direct LinkedIn messages), and made the following updates to our designs:
- Pivoted from a line of text to inform the customer of the use of audio input to a explicit checkbox for consent, after the customer requests for assistance
- Masked the customer’s personal contact information when CSRs send resources and confirmation details to the customer
- Added a position in line indication on the kiosk screen and customer-facing app screen to manage wait time expectations
WHAT CAME OUT OF THE PROJECT
AiR Agent is a smart enterprise system that enables United Airlines CSRs to prepare for and personalize each service interaction.
- Access customer data on-the-go
- Quickly identify customers who need help
- Parse complex air travel policies and generate action plans for customers
With AiR Agent, we envision a more empowering work experience, a more equitable travel experience, and a more scalable enterprise solution for stakeholders.
The versatility of the solution allows it to scale across a multitude of customer needs, and brings back the element of human touch when customers are in a moment of crisis.
We presented our explorations to United Airlines’ leadership in digital delivery and innovation, who commended the project on how it balanced employee needs, customer needs, and business needs.
“You should be on our strategy team...some recommendations that we are thinking about like streamlined kiosks, NFC, and new ideas like how we can use computer vision to better greet customers. Thank you!” - Jason Flint, Director of Digital Delivery, United Airlines
As next steps for this project, we might explore…
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?
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?
WHAT I LEARNED
Advocating for frontline staff
Throughout our project, we encountered a prevalent focus on customer satisfaction. Even when gathering feedback, many assumed we were addressing customer, not employee, needs. We quickly learned to be explicit about the challenge area we were focusing on. 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
Air travel, and especially enterprise systems in air travel, proved to be way more complicated than we had imagined. Nonetheless, it was a rich learning opportunity that helped my entire team grow as designers and researchers. 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.
