Forbes.com reports:
Frontier Airlines has eliminated call-based customer service and moved to an all-digital approach. Frontier Airlines announced that they will no longer offer call-based customer service. All requests will be digitally based, including their app and through chat.
Customer service experts today speak of the “customer experience” or “CX.” Let’s consider the CX that customers really want, how a digitally-enhanced customer experience can deliver, and whether a chatbot-only CX is the best solution for Frontier Airlines – or for any company seeking to cut costs and improve customer satisfaction.
The CX that Customers Want
Customers want their questions answered immediately and their problems solved quickly – and they want to know that someone cares. We have all experienced bad customer service: long hold times, you are asked to prove your identity and state your problem, you talk with someone, you are asked to prove your identity again and state your problem again, you discover you’re talking to the wrong person, and no one gets back to you. Your problem is not solved, you are frustrated, and you are sure that no one in the faceless, nameless corporation cares about you. On the other hand, if your problem is quickly resolved, you are relieved and all is right with the world.
A positive CX enhances the brand, generates repeat sales, and encourages customers to recommend the company, which reduces marketing costs.
A negative CX can destroy a brand – or is tolerated until another brand offers a better CX. By the time the company with the negative CX discovers it is losing market share, customers are leaving in droves to revenge-buy elsewhere.
The Digitally Enhanced CX
If customers want solutions quickly, a digitally-enhanced CX can lower costs and improve customer satisfaction – but only with a thoughtful implementation. The U.S. Transportation Department’s Air Travel Consumer Report breaks complaints into 12 categories (see attached). Let’s take a look at three questions that a customer might ask, and see how they might best be handled:
- What is the largest bag I can bring without paying?
- I was injured on a flight. Help me.
- The airline lost my luggage. How can I get it back?
These are the three basic inquiries:
- An inquiry seeking a specific answer
In this case, the answer is: 14″ high by 18″ wide by 8″ deep. The question could also be phrased: “What bag fits under a seat?” or “What is the largest personal item allowed?” or “Is there any free luggage?” or another variation that is easy to recognize and to answer immediately. Hundreds of specific questions are easy to answer. “Is Flight F89 to Atlanta on time?” “What gate is Flight F46 in Chicago today?” “Does Fronter Airlines fly out of Omaha?”
- An undefined inquiry that requires immediate, personalized response.
Words like “injury”, “sexual assault”, “civil rights,” “racist”, “threatened”, “discrimination”, “death of my pet”, and other words that connote negative situations indicate physical or emotional pain for the customer and potential liability for the company. The longer these situations fester unaddressed, the worse the pain and the greater corporate liability, so they must be handled expeditiously.Here is a workable solution: software can scan for negative situational words that trigger a group of fields, which enable the user to create an incident. The incident report gathers data like Name, Flight Number, “Please tell us what happened”, Email, and Phone Number. Once the customer responds, the system creates an incident identifier, confirms the incident to the customer via email including the incident identifier, and auto-dials the customer for an agent who is specially trained to address sensitive situations. - By creating an incident identifier for every customer situation, the company can track the incident and the customer is not forced to repeat the facts each time they contact the company. Agents can annotate the incident and work in teams and across shifts until the problem is addressed.
- Note the benefits of this solution: data is gathered efficiently, a specially trained agent responds quickly, and customers feel that the company has an interest in their well-being. Personal contact helps to diffuse anger, solve the problem, and may avoid greater liability for the company.
- A well-defined inquiry requiring research, email confirmation, resolution, and a personalized response
When someone loses their luggage, the last thing they want is to “chat” about it: they need to convey specific information about their situation and about their luggage, so that they can get their luggage returned – or confirm that their luggage is lost so that they can replace it – as soon as possible. The state-of-the-art in luggage redemption is to endure long, repetitive, desperate calls with multiple agents who do not communicate with each other. This can be replaced by a more efficient and comforting process that documents the incident and enables airline employees to confidently investigate and resolve the problem.
For instance, a customer who loses luggage can fill out a form on their phone that includes: Name, Flight Number, Luggage Color, Luggage Description, Name on Luggage Tag if different from Passenger, Uploaded Luggage Photo (if available), Uploaded Luggage Receipt Phot, Additional Information (unstructured), Email, and Phone. Once the Lost Luggage Form is completed, the customer would receive a confirmation with an incident number that also covers company policies on lost luggage and details the steps that the airline is taking to resolve the situation. - Losing luggage is major inconvenience: the airline can commit to researching the problem and to calling the customer in an hour. If no resolution is apparent, the agent can say, “We are sorry, but we do not have a resolution yet. Here is what we have done. This is what we will do. You are authorized to spend $X tonight; if we do not find your luggage by Y:00 p.m., we will reimburse you up to $Z.” This can be confirmed in an email. At Y:00 p.m., an agent can call with the final or intermediate resolution. Customers are comforted by competent follow-up and by the voices of people who are dedicated to resolving their problems – even if the resolution is not what they had hoped for.
- The worse the situation, the more important is personal involvement. Writing is excellent for data, but voice is the best way to convey care and to establish two-way communication that can quickly solve problems. Emails and texts confirm facts; voice confirms that someone cares and that the customer has a relationship with the company.
Is Frontier Airlines’ chatbot-only customer experience good for Frontier?
Probably not…for these reasons:
CX is Marketing to Your Current Customers
Frontier may be thinking that customer experience is a cost center, that the cost of customer communications can be cut by cutting voice contact, and that low prices are more important than customer experience. However, a low price is only part of the customer experience.
If a company refuses to speak with its customers, it loses the power of speech, which conveys empathy and inspires confidence. Text is easily mistaken: the world is full of disappointed people who misinterpreted written communications. Speech is a steam-valve that provides relief, enables two-way communications, and can quickly solve problems.
In a digitally-enhanced world, data can be gathered first, but speech should quickly follow to establish the optimal customer experience. For efficiency, calls in a digital CX environment can go OUT from the contact center rather than IN from the customer. In this model, agents have evaluated the situation, and are calling to seek more information or to offer a resolution.
Frontier is competing against at least one company that values premiere CX.
The most valuable U.S. airline is Southwest, a company that even promotes its brand through its stock symbol: LUV. Southwest has a deep focus on customer experience, logistics, and low prices. As of this writing, Southwest is the most valuable U.S. airline with a market cap of $23.6 billion, trailing twelve-month sales of $22.7 billion, and net operating income of $827 million.
Frontier Airlines (symbol: ULCC) has a market cap of $2.8 billion, trailing twelve-month sales of $3 billion and a net operating loss of $180 million. Frontier Airlines could leverage digital CX to compete, but we think a commitment to chatbot-only CX will be detrimental to its brand – especially since its most valuable competitor is dedicated to outstanding CX.
Frontier is betting on an outsourced customer experience.
Companies that operate outsourced CX services typically have little incentive to improve customer service because they are paid by the minutes of interactions and by the numbers of interactions. Outsourced contracts may also include incentive payments based on post-incident satisfaction surveys, but those surveys are flawed because many dissatisfied customers leave in disgust or agents cut off angry customers before they can respond.
Frontier could improve its brand by owning and polishing it customer experience.
According to the U.S. Dept of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report, Frontier Airlines has the most complaints per mile of any major airline and ranks last in overall consumer satisfaction. Improving CX would be the best and least expensive way for Frontier to improve its reputation, build its brand, and move toward profitability.
Try the Frontier Airlines Chatbot
Test your own questions on the Frontier Airlines chatbot. We note that the Frontier chatbot promises a 6-hour response for “lost luggage.” Would that be a positive experience?
https://www.flyfrontier.com/chat-with-us/?mobile=true
About ICS.cx
ICS is dedicated to great customer experience, which is why we re-named our company “ICS.cx”. Our web address is a short “handle” that helps customers reach us quickly. ICS is on a mission to improve customer experience wherever we can.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report
https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2022-12/November%202022%20ATCR.pdf
COMPLAINT CATEGORIES
- Flight Problems: Cancellations, delays, or any other deviations from schedule, whether planned or unplanned.
- Oversales: All bumping problems, whether or not the airline complied with DOT oversales regulations.
- Reservations, Ticketing, Boarding: Airline or travel agent mistakes made in reservations and ticketing; problems in making reservations and obtaining tickets due to busy telephone lines or waiting in line, or delays in mailing tickets; problems boarding the aircraft (except oversales).
- Fares: Incorrect or incomplete information about fares, discount fare conditions and availability, overcharges, fare increases and level of fares in general.
- Refunds: Problems in obtaining refunds for unused or lost tickets, fare adjustments, or bankruptcies.
- Baggage: Claims for lost, damaged or delayed baggage, charges for excess baggage, carry-on problems, and difficulties with airline claims procedures.
- Customer Service: Rude or unhelpful employees, inadequate meals or cabin service, treatment of delayed passengers, unsatisfactory seat assignment (non-disability), problems with family seating.
- Disability: Civil rights complaints by air travelers with disabilities.
- Advertising: Advertising that is unfair, misleading or offensive to consumers.
- Discrimination: Civil rights complaints by air travelers (other than disability); for example, complaints based on race, national origin, religion, etc.
- Animals: Loss, injury or death of an animal during air transport provided by an air carrier.
- Other: Frequent flyer, smoking, tours credit, cargo problems, security, airport facilities, claims for bodily injury, sexual assault/misconduct, and others not classified above.
