United Airlines has a reputation as one of the nation’s least favorite airlines–though not as disliked as Spirit–and its customer service slip-ups might well play a part in its shaky reputation. But United just made one small change that might subtly boost customer satisfaction, and it’s got nothing to do with improving flight reliability, dropping prices or serving better food. When a passenger’s flight is delayed for weather reasons, United will now text them live radar maps to help them understand exactly why their flight may not be leaving on time.
The airline relies on generative AI to power the message system, CBS News reports. And its entire purpose is to keep customers updated, serving up as much information as possible. In its press release announcement, United says this “latest innovation” can actually help customers “understand how inclement weather in one part of the country can impact a flight elsewhere.” The announcement also says it’s also the first and only airline “currently providing its customers these kinds of specific messages” and highlights that the messages are built with the help of generative AI. Previously, these messages were crafted by “dedicated teams” that wrote and sent them to customers to give “near-instantaneous details about a given flight.”
United’s messaging system already included telling passengers about typical airline processes that may have contributed to delays, like specific info “regarding aircraft swaps, crew rescheduling” and so on, but it’s really going all-in on the weather data idea: customers on all flights can access links to weather maps in the United app under flight status updates. United also displays radar maps in the gate area when a flight has been delayed due to weather.
Why is this a brilliant idea, though? Firstly it tells disgruntled customers, perhaps folks glancing out their own windows at clear sunny skies, that distant bad weather is playing a role in their delayed flights. Secondly, just providing the extra information may quash some customer complaints by itself, and the airline may boost its image with customers by appearing to care enough to explain what’s going on.
In a well-known TED talk, Rory Sutherland, a British advertising executive and leading proponent of marketing techniques using psychology versus conventional ads, explained how the London Underground subway system dramatically improved customer satisfaction. It wasn’t by improving the train service, with “faster, more frequent, later running trains.” Sutherland says Underground did so by “putting dot matrix display boards on the platform to tell you how long you were going to have to wait for your next train.” Customer happiness was boosted simply by being told that the next train was in, say nine minutes, and customers were much happier to wait, compared to, say, waiting for a train that was coming in six minutes but not knowing its scheduled arrival.
United is trying to tap into this same psychological vein with its weather maps. Instead of spending millions of dollars trying to streamline flight systems, staff management, ground operations and other processes to shave minutes off each passenger delay, it’s spending very little money to tweak a system it already operates–and it’s incorporating AI, which may actually lighten the burden on its passenger communications staff.
Only time will tell if United’s weather data trick will offset customer dissatisfaction caused by its fresh embrace of targeted ads shown in-flight. Let’s workshop the next United airlines slogan: “Good data leads the way”?