Reversing negative emotions during long haul flights
Company: KLM
My position: Service Designer / Researcher
My role: Lead Designer / Researcher
Duration: 18 Months
Introduction
As research associate for the design Academy Eindhoven I developed an original strategic design research project for KLM to explore how KLM could improve their Long-haul flight experience for both customers and staff. What resulted was a body of work that looked to reverse negative emotions during flights and ultimately make cabin crew more Customer focused and less task and safety focused in their customer interactions.
Mapping a Long haul Flight
Activity
The first activity we did was to Map a typical Long haul flight from boarding to Disembarking. As well as mapping the journey we also collected user experience stories.
Value
We got a lot if insight into the relationship between passengers and cabin crew when we started constructing the customer journey map. I realised that cabin crew were neglecting to say what the passengers were doing parallel to their tasks. The cabin crew couldn’t categorically say what passengers would be doing. In the final Journey map there are big white gaps in the passenger actions row. This was when I hypothesised that cabin crew were predominantly task and security focused rather than Passenger focused.
Workshop
Hand baggage only
Activity
In order to fill the gaps in our Customer Journey I ran a workshop with Passengers to try and learn what kind of experiences they try to create during Long Haul flights. I asked the participants to bring with them a typical hand baggage they would take on a long haul flight. They took it in turns to show their items and explain what it is and why they take it on long haul flight.
Value
What resulted were lots of interesting stories of how passengers try to use time or pass not by during long haul flights. Dice became about playing with a travelling companion, socks became about comfort and warmth, time became an opportunity to draw when one passenger never found time to do so otherwise. Through this and another workshop with passengers around how flights make them feel, we had gained a picture of what types of experiences passengers attempt to create in the absence of one provided.
WORKSHOP
Cabin Crew Interactions
Activity
Through the workshops with passengers we had learned that a lot of negative experiences occurred with interactions with the Cabin Crew, and that passengers would like better interactions with cabin crew. So we looked closer at how cabin crew interact with passengers and how they might be able to do it differently. I ran a workshop with Cabin Crew and provided them with props to story board real but negative experiences. Once they had illustrated their stories they presented them to the broader group. I then asked each group to retell their stories but make them positive, What could they do differently or change to make this more positive.
Value
One group told their negative story about a passenger who they found lying in the isle as he couldn’t get to sleep in his seat. The Cabin Crew told the passenger that he was not allowed to lie in the isle due to safety so he must go back to his seat. Begrudgingly and after some argument the disgruntled passenger returned to his seat.
When the group came back to present the positive version I asked what they had done differently, they replied: “There is one simple word for this: empathy. I realised that his problem was he can’t sleep, so rather than enforce rules I attempted to solve the problem of helping him sleep.” They had proposed that in fact, they could perhaps offer him a blanket or a pillow, a cup of tea that may help him sleep. This was a great moment in the project when the Cabin Crew had realised that there is a subtle difference but a powerful one between being protocol focused and truly passenger focused. One participant said to me after this workshop: “I really thought I was truly passenger focused, and I now realise I could do so much more”.
Conclusion
The outcome of this project led to a proposal to looking developing a part of the Cabin Crew training that looks at creative problem solving and empathy. As the scope of the project was to come up with a strategic solution that did not involve adding anything to the plane, such as products or digital services.
Workshop