GOAL
How might we unify all travel credits into one type to make it easier for customers to do business with AA?
ROLE
Strategy, User Experience Design (UXD), User Interface Design (UID), Storytelling
OVERVIEW
As the world faced historical challenges with the growing COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we sought to help and support our customers and business. During these unchartered territories, we experienced decreased bookings and increased cancellations, which resulted in an unprecedented amount of distributed refunds and credit.
As the UX Design Lead of the Digital Customer Experience (DCX), Shop, Buy, and Ancillaries (SBA) team, I looked to explore how we may improve our stored value experience, as well as holistically refine the customer experience.
I collaborate with my fellow UX leaders and business program managers to create a holistic end-to-end user experience. I also oversaw and developed reusable UX design templates to encourage creative and innovative solutions to the channels. In addition, my role encompasses gathering and interpreting business outcomes and partnering with IT to implement and deliver digital self-service solutions effectively.
BUSINESS GOALS
1. Preserve cash
Keep cash by reducing cancellations by offering self-service and stored value.
Keep cash by reducing cancellations by offering self-service and stored value.
2. Reduce calls
Decrease calls to reservations by improving user experience and self-service.
Decrease calls to reservations by improving user experience and self-service.
3. Improve user experience
Help customers seamlessly navigate refunds, cancellations, and manage stored value.
Help customers seamlessly navigate refunds, cancellations, and manage stored value.
USER EXPERIENCE GOALS
1. Simplify Transactions
Make it easy for users to receive, manage, and use their stored value.
Make it easy for users to receive, manage, and use their stored value.
2. Reduce Decisions
Help customers reduce decision fatigue by simplifying
choices and limiting options.
Help customers reduce decision fatigue by simplifying
choices and limiting options.
3. Educate customer
Inform customers what are stored values? credit limitations, and who’s eligible?
Inform customers what are stored values? credit limitations, and who’s eligible?
PROCESS
To develop a holistic point of view, we will work through the various lenses of experience, technology, and business, focusing on bringing ideas to life based on how real users think, feel, and behave. In conjunction with human-centered design, we will structure our sprint through the process of Design Thinking. This process allowed us to be iterative, flexible and focused on collaboration between the various groups at American Airlines.
All groups were running concurrently to the proposed sprint timeline. We had weekly/bi-weekly shares with more prominent convergent points.
Above is an example from the technical team that developed a back-end floating Virtual Coupon Record (VCR) over an 8-week sprint. The UX team designs ahead to concept quicker solutions. This agile and design sprint process will help everyone in testing, validation, and implementation.
Developing a holistic product vision
As we sought to update our web technology and modernize our current experience to customer expectations, I proposed a holistic product vision which looked towards designing a future-ready vision.
I aimed to streamline the digital customer experience, ensuring consistency and coherence across all features and interactions, integrating them into a unified user journey while developing a comprehensive design system.
MVP Limitations
While trying to reduce complexities within and outside the company, we focused on one of the Stored Value Credits and built a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) around eVouchers. eVouchers are redeemable for air travel on flights operated by American, American Eagle®, and oneworld® partners or on flights marketed by American (designated with an A.A.*). There were many limitations to the product, which included the following:
• eVouchers were only available in the US, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• eVouchers were only available in USD currency.
• eVouchers could not be applied towards a reissue even if there's a fare difference.
• All ticketing had to be set up no later than one year from the date of issue
• At the time, eVouchers did not support ancillary purchases.
• Not all vouchers were taxable. Some vouchers were issued as U.S. tax-exempt (to ensure proper taxes are collected, all voucher ticket designators price with taxes and charges regardless of the voucher value.)
• eVouchers were only available in the US, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• eVouchers were only available in USD currency.
• eVouchers could not be applied towards a reissue even if there's a fare difference.
• All ticketing had to be set up no later than one year from the date of issue
• At the time, eVouchers did not support ancillary purchases.
• Not all vouchers were taxable. Some vouchers were issued as U.S. tax-exempt (to ensure proper taxes are collected, all voucher ticket designators price with taxes and charges regardless of the voucher value.)
Redeeming eVouchers: User flow and Design Audit
RESULTS
Our specific product, Shop and Buy on aa.com affects 91% of direct bookings. In Q1 of 2021, we saw $3.2 billion in passenger revenue from air transportation and payment associated with AAdvantage mileage credit redemptions and ancillary fees.
"Ultimately, the goal is to unify all travel credits into one type to make it easier for customers to do business with AA. Still, the airline told TPG that it's going to take some time before the entire process is finished and there's no immediate timeline for when it'll be complete.
Either way, this is a welcome improvement from American, and it comes as the airline continues to implement flyer-friendly policies in response to the pandemic. In recent months, American has loosened restrictions on basic economy tickets, eliminated AAdvantage award change and cancel fees and removed phone service charges, among others. And now, with this latest initiative, the carrier is making it easier than ever to use your existing travel credits."
Read more from the The Point's Guy artictle: American Airlines is making it much easier to redeem your existing travel credits https://thepointsguy.com/news/american-airlines-trip-credit-improvement/
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For additional info, email me at biz[at]dimitrialexander.com
For additional info, email me at biz[at]dimitrialexander.com