Editorial
The Gist
- Customer service at risk. Customer service cuts at American Airlines may worsen traveler experiences, raising doubts about service quality.
- Bridging the gap. Technology, like AI, could bridge service gaps created by reduced ground staff, enhancing customer support.
- Careful alignment. Aligning self-service with customer expectations is crucial to prevent dissatisfaction and retain loyalty.
In the high-stress arena of air travel, where delayed or canceled flights can leave passengers marooned in terminals and tethered to lengthy customer service calls, American Airlines' strategy to cut over 650 customer service positions ostensibly for the enhancement of the customer experience seems counterintuitive.
This move begs the question: Can a reduction in customer-facing staff truly lead to the promised elevation in service quality, or will it exacerbate the very anxieties that it aims to soothe? Let's take a look at American Airlines customer service and its move toward customer service automation.
American Airlines Customer Service: Travel Tribulations & a Glimmer of Hope
Clocking 1.4 million miles personally on American Airlines (AA), I'm no stranger to the skies — or AA's customer service and loyalty program. But my recent experience flying from Liberia to Dallas was a stark reminder of today's travel tribulations. Ground agent apathy met me first; assistance was given grudgingly, if at all. It was a classic gate shortage that set us back — too many American birds, not enough perches.
Yet, aboard the plane, a glimmer of hope: flight attendants adept with technology and data, navigating us through the snarl of logistics. Technology, it seems, could bridge some of the service gap from ground agents.
Related Article: Grounded in Reality: Air Travel Woes and Customer Experience Lessons
Airline Customer Experience: Minimizing Consumer Friction
Stepping beyond my million-mile flight log, today's dialogue brings us face to face with Mario Matulich, an expert in customer experience, especially for the airlines. With 17 years charting the nuances of customer service, particularly in the volatile skies of travel, Matulich is well-versed in the turbulence airlines navigate daily. He champions the creed that airlines, like American, should minimize consumer friction — a mantra echoed by industry leaders.
Matulich believes that airlines are responsible for streamlining customer service procedures to the best of their ability and reducing as many consumer friction points as possible. CMP Research aligns with Matulich, placing friction reduction high on the agenda, both in challenge and necessity.
Related Article: Customer Experience Best Practices: One Airline Soars, Another Stays Grounded
American Airlines' Shift: Balancing Staffing and Service
American Airlines' pivot to a robust customer success team is a promising nod to service enhancement. They're zeroing in on the traveler's plea for swift, adept issue resolution. Yet, the paradox of their hefty staff cuts looms, igniting concern over whether streamlined support will suffer from thinning ranks. Given this, it is crucial that American Airlines not only consolidate assistance but also ensures there will be enough personnel to handle complaints with seamless call quality.
Related Article: AI Integration Enhances Decision Trees for Better CX
American Airlines Faces Customer Service 'Turbulence': AI to the Rescue?
In 2023, the Department of Transportation was bombarded with over 10,000 air travel complaints, signaling persistent turbulence in passenger satisfaction. American's workforce trim casts a shadow of doubt over its strategic compass. To bridge this gap, American must embrace the digital co-pilot of AI and customer service automation. Think chatbots fielding FAQs or AI forecasting weather woes to preemptively chart course corrections.
Such tech could free human agents to tackle the complex travel conundrums that demand a personal touch. So, what does Matulich think about what American Airline’s plan?
Related Article: AI in Customer Experience: The Impact on Customer Journeys
Major Sources of Customer Friction
I asked Matulich about the major sources of customer friction for airlines, particularly American Airlines, that need fixing. He responded, “Personalization and ease are the two top drivers in generating exceptional customer experiences. Personalization has a 3.1x impact on customer satisfaction in self-service versus a 2.6x impact looking purely at issue resolution. Additionally, identifying the right mix of self-service and live support is paramount. In any industry, failure to perform in these areas will result in less-than-ideal customer experience, which can usher your current customers directly to your fiercest competitors. There is an especially bright light shining on the airline industry as loyalty is far from guaranteed.”
Customer Service Automation: Role of Better Tools
In Tiffani Bova’s book, “The Experience Mindset,” she talks about the interrelationship between customer experience and those delivering customer experience. Too often, I have personally had an airline agent say they need to get into another system to answer my question.
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How important is it for American Airlines to engage its workers who are left with better tools? Matulich agrees with the premise here and says, “Disparate systems continue to be a major issue for airlines like American Airlines. So many organizations arrive to the easy part of customer experience. They agree internally that they want to put the customer first. Unfortunately, this is where the hard work begins. There are so many broken customer journeys.
"Too often," Matulich continued, "we are seeing brands make their customers work too hard. At the root of this are the frontline customer service representatives. They often lack empowerment like the agents for Mr. Suer’s flight from Liberia. They are bound by strict internal policy. And finally, they do not have the ability to solve customer problems quickly to achieve the desired end goal ... a quick, easy and personalized experience. In fact, 28% of executives cite reconciling existing technology as a top barrier to delivering effective self-service customer experiences.”
Setting Investment Objectives
What exactly is AA investing in that will transform customer experience? It would seem that AI could automate many tasks. Could it tell it that I like to sit at the front of the plane in an aisle in the preferred seat area? Could I automatically ask for it to do upgrades or meals in a Turbo Tax interview type form? Matulich claims that “a major pitfall facing many organizations is that they are taking measures like American Airlines is: misaligning self-service experience with customer expectations. I so often see how brands will design a self-service experience in a boardroom, decrease their live support channels by 20%+, only to see their customers immediately return to live support following one failed self-service experience. The result of this … long wait times, dissatisfied customers, agent burnout and debilitating attrition costs.”
Matulich continues by saying, “It is critical for a rollout of increased self-service to be aligned with customer preferences. More times than not, organizations make massive assumptions based on conventional wisdom when it comes to customer preferences. As a result, the customer quickly becomes disenchanted — best case, they return to their traditional live support channel; worst case, they seek a brand that can more effectively provide self-service that meets their expectations. Eighty-two percent of customers want to be served the way they want, and 78% of customers like to have control over how they are served.”
Can Customer Service Automation Make American Airlines Better?
So what is American Airlines doing to deal with delays? Why can’t the airline use AI to deal with delays especially being more preemptive with connections? In other words, reroute me automatically, including appropriate seat assignments?
Matulich claims, “Any organization can implement AI. Unfortunately, there is not a switch that you simply flip when you are ready. Customer experience needs to be well-designed; data needs to be well-structured, and customer expectations must be considered. So much is possible, but often organizations are sold a dream instead of the reality. The reality is that you must start small and build confidence within your customer base as well as with your internal teams. Airlines should be careful of sweeping decisions like reducing live agent support by large percentages at the onset of your self-service deployment.”
Best Practices to Consider for Exceptional Customer Service
Are there customer experience best practices? Clearly people practices are a great place to start. Is American Airlines doing anything here as well? Can people make bad processes work if customer service personnel are appropriately engaged?
Matulich says, “The fact is the pandemic served as a major inflection point for the customer service industry. While this was the case for many industries, few were as dramatic as customer service. With frontline customer service personnel going from approximately 20% working hybrid or remote pre-pandemic to approximately 80% post-pandemic, the competency framework of both agents and managers has shifted significantly."
"With this said," Matulich added, "managers are critical. They are not only the No. 1 driver of agent engagement but also agent retention and top performance. Additionally, flexibility and career development play a massive role. However, if you do what you have always done, these days, you will get far less than you have always gotten. Interestingly, 60% of managers agree that working from home introduces more complexity to managing teams. Adjusting your competency framework across both frontline managers and agents is an absolute requirement for organizations today especially those deflecting more interaction into self-service channels while asking your live support teams to do far more with less. Failing to prepare this type of adjustment is preparing to fail.”
Streamlining Customer Service Procedures
What is AA doing to streamline customer service procedures, or will this get in the way? Matulich says, “American Airlines has the right intentions. However, they are making a massive bet on their self-service design. Customers satisfied with self-service experience are 38% more likely to stay contained in self-service channels and return to it in the future. We have seen a perfect storm of customer issues form in many other organizations taking similar measures. This is mostly due to a one and done tolerance for poorly delivered self-service. Time will tell if AA did their due diligence before greenlighting their plans.”
The Impact of Legacy Technology
Legacy technology ruined CX for Southwest during its meltdown. What is the state of American’s technology? Does it have unresolved tech debt as well? “To my earlier commentary,” says Matulich, “even with state-of-the-art tech, a misaligned experience will result in high customer frustration, additional friction, and unfortunately, lost market share. Legacy tech simply makes the job more difficult and significantly increases probability of failure when you face any stumbling blocks.”
The Function of a Dedicated Team
What issues should be addressed by creating a dedicated team? How will this be impacted by the reduction in people?
Matulich claims, “Customers do not have a high tolerance for broken self-service. We have seen a deflection of customers who traditionally interact in live support channels come roaring back when they experience high-effort interactions when self-serving. What type of live support did they receive in that scenario? Not the same live support experience they are accustomed to. Instead, they are getting live support with ... fewer resources delivering it. What does this mean? Be sure to optimize your self-service channels before making drastic cuts to your live support channels. To do this, you need a strong internal business case and the necessary data to keep your finance teams at bay while you accelerate the development of your self-service delivery, implementation of various tools into designated channels, etc. If you are operating without a clear playbook, benchmarking access, and insights into various best practices across industry verticals, you are equivalently walking a tightrope without a safety net.”
The Role of Customer Service Automation
So, should more be done by automation, and should the rest be done by people? How should this impact Web and IVR experiences? Matulich says, “We are absolutely amid a self-service revolution given the exciting technology advancements underscored by the increased speed of adoption of generative AI. However, understanding the main customer drivers, desired outcomes and preferences is the prerequisite to implementing an impactful plan. If done well, customers will be happier as they will become self-sufficient. Frontline agents will grow more engaged as their work becomes more challenging and exciting, and brands will win market share and grow customer lifetime value as their customers grow to adore them while other organizations aspire to be them.”
Parting Words on American Airlines and Customer Service Automation
We are clearly at a transformation moment in terms of how we consider customer experience and deliver it. New technology can power change but people and process matter equally. The question is how we construct an effective customer experience with the resources that we have today.
Hard choices await all organizations, but the jury is still out whether reducing people in a move toward customer service automation will lead to better results. Hopefully, Matulich's insights will be useful to you on your journey to better customer experience.
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