Why the United Airlines debacle was just bad service design
On April 9, Dr. David Dao was dragged off a United Airlines flight to make room for four crew members that had to be accommodated instead. After videos of him being dragged off and bloodied by security officers surfaced less than 24 hours later, we witness one of the most potent internet meme cycles in recent memory. It was a PR disaster for United, especially because of a less than adequate response by its CEO. Clearly, United failed on multiple levels, including basic human decency, but there is another prominent failure here must be addressed: good service design.
Most of us are used to thinking of design as the physical appearance of something, or our interactions with an object like a phone or a pamphlet. Service design refers to how services, like an airline or a restaurant, give customers a “journey” by managing their interactions and transactions with them. As an example, the Department of Motor Vehicles has a famously bad service design because of long wait times, disengaged employees, and reams of red tape.
Good service can have a massive impact on customer happiness. Think about the last time you were smoothly ushered to a seat in a restaurant and served promptly by a courteous waiter assigned to you. Chances are that even if the food wasn’t great, your experience was.
United Airlines’ behavior wasn’t an isolated incident; its history has been fraught with instances of awful service. In 2012, United Airlines staff asked an Iraq War veteran with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury if he was “retarded,” and even kicked his service dog. In 2015, a Muslim chaplain was prevented from opening a soda can on the grounds that she might use the can’s flip top as a weapon. It should be clear by now that the Dr. Dao incident wasn’t a flash in the pan. So let’s look at why it was so bad and what we can learn from it.
“The research shows that customers perceive good services based on conveyed courtesy, clear communication, and shared understanding,” said Dr. Jacob O. Wobbrock, professor of human-computer interaction and experience design at the iSchool, in an email.
In order to get unified service, companies typically have to design interactions with every representative of the company, be it a person at a kiosk or a booking website. Together, they create a uniform, pleasing customer experience.
However, in the age of cost-cutting, the thought put into these services tends to be lacking. In Dr. Dao’s case, he wasn’t actually removed by United Airlines. The plane itself was owned by a contractor called Republic Airways. The people dragging Dr. Dao off the plane weren’t United staff. They were officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation who were acting against their standard operating procedures.
Let’s take a step back: A well-designed service would have ensured that edge cases like a passenger unwilling to leave a plane would be executed in a humane manner. A well-designed service would have ensured that the various elements of the service that the customer interacts with would have worked seamlessly.
Yet, United subcontracted the plane and its staff and pawned the responsibility of removal to the Chicago Department of Aviation, neither of which had the training to provide a seamless experience to Dr. Dao. The most likely reason they had to rely on such shoddy service was cost-cutting.
“Today, many services, including and perhaps especially the airlines, are focused more on keeping prices low and jamming as many customers through their pipeline as possible, without the attention to detail that was commonplace two decades ago,” Wobbrock said. “The result is an increasing separation between those treated well and the masses, and I think this reflects a larger divide in society as a whole. Companies must soon realize that good service — well-designed service — actually serves their bottom line.”
This is where United’s salvation lies. In realizing that a well-designed service makes for happy customers, which makes for good business, on April 27, they came up with a whole list of new service rules, including limiting the use of law enforcement for safety and security issues only, increasing customer compensation, and establishing a customer solutions team to circumvent future debacles.
Maybe after this United Airlines ordeal, companies will start to realize that well-designed services are something all customers, not just the elite, are entitled to.
Reach columnist Arunabh Satpathy at opinion@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @sarunabh
