User Centric Experience at its finest

May 15, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Marketing, Process, Strategy 

I recently had the opportunity to fly Virgin America for the first time. I had read about this airline since before it was approved for commercial flights in the US, so I was eager to see what it was all about. I came away feeling very pleased with the whole experience and three things stick out in my mind:

  • Efficiency
  • Customer Focus
  • Great Design

Efficiency

When I arrived at the Virgin America check-in counter a few things struck me:

  1. there was a short line
  2. there were only a few check-in kiosk and they weren’t all in use

As an industrial Engineer it’s second nature for me to analyze a process.  I knew there had to be something different about Virgin right away.  There was no mass chaos as I am accustomed to seeing at almost every other airline.

What could possibly contribute to this harmonious sight?

The first thing is the kiosks.  As someone who has done his fair share of flying I know that the User Experience of an airline kiosk can vary greatly.  At Virgin I could not ask for a more streamlines process.  Swipe a credit card and your information comes right up.  Select the number of bags to check-in and print out your boarding pass.  Contrast this to the American Airlines kiosk which has 3 ways to find your information and if you are flying AA through another carrier good luck figuring out what your record locator is.

Like most other airlines today, at Virgin you do have to pay to check-in a bag.  Unlike other airlines however, for $25 you can have up to 70 lbs. in your luggage.  I am sure this is a huge contributor to the fact that I saw a short line at the check-in counter.  How many times have you seen people repacking at the airport in order to meet the 50 lbs. limit most airlines have..  No one wants to pay an extra $100 or more because they packed an extra 10 pounds in their luggage.  It is very common to not only see people repacking their luggage at the airport, but to see passengers argue with airline staff when they are over the limit.

Customer Focus

The Virgin boarding pass is a welcome change to the hideous boarding passes that are common in the industry.

Virgin America Boarding Pass

Not only is it smaller than a traditional boarding pass, thus saving paper.  It actually has only the information you need, fantastic.  I am not the only one to have noticed.

That ticket was made for us, not the airline.  Someone actually sat down, figured out what we need to know and laid it out in a clean concise form factor. Beautiful.  Oh, and that boarding pass is also your baggage ticket, one barcode to rule them all.

Who here likes listening to or watching the flight safety information before the flight departs?  I do, well, I do on Virgin America.  The flight safety video was animated and really well done.  It was actually entertaining.  Again, someone, like me realized that all passengers would have to endure the flight safety information video and decided to actually make it pleasant, that is simple customer centric design.

The in-flight entertainment system which includes live TV, on demand movies and tv shows, music, games and in-flight text chat with other passengers is top notch.  I know this alone would keep my kids entertained on a 6 hour flight, no need to let them use the iPad :)  One negative I would note about the on demand movies and TV is their cost.  At $3 to $6 I find them kind of expensive.  I’ve always been turned off to the constant nickel and dimming when it comes to the airlines.  I would much rather they increase the cost of the ticket by $20 and include all these “extras” than ask me to take out my wallet at every turn.

Virgin America also has in-flight wifi, but yeah it’s at an additional price.  They do have mobile device pricing which is a few dollars less, but an iPad is considered a full computer so no break.

That entertainment system has another trick.  You can actually use it to order food right to your seat.  They have a nice assortment of items on the menu, but overall I have to give Virgin a negative rating for not even including a cookie in the price of your ticket.  Here Jet Blue wins.  I have always loved that about Jet Blue.  At least you can get one or 2 snacks from those guys and the quality of the food is really good.

Great Design

I’ve already spoken about the great design of the boarding pass and that’s the type of quality to expect from Virgin America’s design decisions.  Prior to flying VA I had noticed that their website was extremely user centric.  If you do a search you will note that the departing city is auto populated and if you leave the site and come back a few days later and perform a search, the last criteria you entered will be auto populated.  It’s these little things that count.

When you walk into a plane you are greeted by a pleasantly illuminated modern interior.  You kind of feel like you are walking into a Star Trek movie set, but its actually a welcome change from the drab interiors most airlines have.

Cabin Interior

Another well design object at Virgin America is the remote used to control the TV.  When you first sit down you may wonder how you control this screen in front of you.  While the screen is a touch screen, hidden beneath the arm rest is a tethered multi-function remote.  In the arm rest it serves the typical functions you would normally see on seat controls like volume up-down, but when you take it out you notice that it not only has more functions on that face of the remote, but underneath it has a full keyboard and a credit card reader to pay for the food and on demand offerings.

Thank you for flying

No airline is perfect.  I can say that there are things I like better about Jet Blue and there are things I love about Southwest, but all in all I can say that Virgin America really impressed me.  From the simple check-in and 70 pound luggage limit to the efficient and effective boarding pass and the great in flight entertainment system.  One thing that you have not heard me say is anything good about the legacy airlines.  In my mind they have no redeeming qualities.  They are bloated, inefficient, rude and the polar opposite of customer focused.  My dream is that one day there will be no American Airlines, no Delta, no United, no Continental and a new era in air travel will arrive.  An era where these newer players get to compete on service and where efficiency, customer focus and design are used to create a measurable differentiating advantage by all airlines.

 

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