Improving passenger experience with disruption handling through proactive information design for KLM

Abstract

Financial pressures in the airline industry, such as increased fuel prices, competitive environment and the extensive use of new technologies, have forced KLM to change its strategy in order to achieve a vital market differentiation. The new strategy introduces a user-centred mindset in developing new innovative products and services. In other words, the customer needs are researched and products are designed according to those needs. Consequently, KLM focuses on creating customer intimacy.

The customer satisfaction is measured by the Net Promoter Scores (NPS) index. KLM’s goal is to gradually raise this index from current score of 43 (2017) to 50 by 2020. In order to achieve that goal, KLM identified certain gaps in their customer’s journey experience to focus on and improve them. One of the identified gaps is the disruption handling.

Disruption is anything that alters the planning of the passenger. This might be a cancellation of a flight, a small delay of 10 minutes or a mass disruption due to weather circumstances. 38% of KLM’s passengers experience a disruption. Many quantitative researches conducted by KLM have shown that the disruption handling influences the NPS index dramatically (Delay NPS score of 2-16 is 16). Consequently, good disruption handling is very important for increasing the popularity of KLM and achieving its goal to “become the most customer-centric, innovative and efficient European network carrier”.

A very important customer need, defined by the aforementioned customer journey research, is the receiving of pro-active information when a disruption occurs. Additionally, KLM has already identified four factors that its customers need; passengers need consistent, relevant and personalised information at the right time. KLM offers several notifications from many different communication channels. However, KLM customer insights department receives many complaints about the disruption handling.

Also, there is no research or guidelines on how and what pro-active information should be received in order to fulfil KLM’s vision for customers: “KLM Cares for me by making me feel touched and recognised as an individual. I can feel that KLM is easy to deal with whenever a disruption occurs”.
The passengers that are influenced more by the disruptions are the frequent travellers, since they experience disruptions more often. Furthermore, usually those travellers are flying for business reasons. KLM believes that if there is a solution fulfilling their needs, then the same solution will likely solve the problem of the regular passengers as well. Thus, the focus is on the frequent travellers flying for business reasons.

In order to identify the passengers’ real needs during disruptions, a user research was conducted with KLM passengers. This research revealed that the passengers not only need information timely, accurate, relevant and personal but also transparent. Furthermore, it revealed that the main concern of the target group is to keep their schedule without changes, as much as possible. Last but not least, the delays are more frustrating disruptions than cancelled flights, because of their ambiguous nature and especially the delays that occur at the gates prior to the departure. As a result of the user research, this thesis focuses on the delays occurring at the gate, on the concern of the passengers that is in which level the schedule is influenced and includes transparent information.

After three iterations with prototypes and small user tests KLM passengers, the created solution is a communication system, called “My Delay”, integrated in the KLM mobile application. It aims to make the passengers feel in control of the situation, less angry and assist them to make the most of their time.

In order to fulfil the passenger’s concern about the change of his/her schedule, an alarm philosophy was created which is based on which actions the passenger should take in order to make his/her travel as smooth as possible. Four levels of urgency were identified. The lower level of urgency concerns situations where the delay is small and/or it does not change the passenger’s schedule. The next level of urgency concerns situations that the schedule is slightly altered but with no dramatic changes. The high level of urgency concerns situations in which the schedule of the passenger is totally disrupted. Finally, the highest level of urgency includes situations that are harmful for the life of the passenger, such as terrorist attacks.

All the aforementioned the levels of urgency are depicted in the communication system with differences in notification sounds, colours, information and instructions. Each level has an emotional goal that needs to be derived from the passenger. In the lower level the passenger needs to feel calm, in the medium level intrigued, in the high level active and in the last highly active.

The way the message is communicated to the passenger and the compensational additional features are based on the theory of management studies “delivery of bad news”. The message prioritise the information presenting firstly the fact and its basic details, secondly the change of the schedule and the next step of the passenger, thirdly the reason of the delay and the solution and fourthly the further steps the passenger can take. In that way, KLM shows that takes the responsibility to inform honestly the passengers and help them to make the most of their time.

Finally, evaluation user tests were conducted with KLM passengers, testing the perceived criticality of the messages and the derived emotions from the passengers. The results were very positive. The participants were pleased with the message and the amount and kind of information, understanding the criticality of each situation. It is worth mentioning the fact that the result of the NPS of the user test was 55, which is a huge difference from the current score during delays, which it is 16(NPS 2016). Of course, there are some limitations in the user tests and this number should not be considered as the one in real situations. However, this index offers the confidence that a communication system like this will increase the satisfaction levels of the passengers when a delay at the gate occurs.