Alaska’s E-commerce Design & Research team has been using UserTesting since 2014. At the pandemic’s onset, they quickly realized that digital touchpoints and messaging were more important than ever as customers wanted to be as safe as possible when traveling.
“We know a lot about our guests and how they travel. But COVID-19 has really changed a lot of the ways we are thinking about travel. We wanted to make sure that we understood the guests’ experience,” said Aubri Denevan, Senior UX Researcher at Alaska.
“We at Alaska have an experience map and we look at the full travel experience from the point when guests first start thinking about traveling all the way till they get to their destination. We have a lot of different phases in that experience map,” she said. “So, we really wanted to look at the holistic view of how COVID-19 is impacting our guests.”
Alaska teams intercepted customers in the airport to understand their mindset as they were waiting for their flights. The insights from destination studies, incorporating guests’ smartphone cameras, enabled Alaska to see and hear what their guests were going through and thinking–in the moment–in their journeys.
They wanted to learn more about four key questions:
What was different about travelers in their preparation prior to going to the airport?
How were passengers spending their time once they go through security and before boarding the airplane?
What new protocols or tactics are our airlines implementing that are creating either a better or perhaps even worse customer experience in the boarding area?
What state of mind were contributors or travelers in and how does this impact their likelihood to travel again during the pandemic?
“The ability to not only get the attitudes from asking people questions but to see, in the moment, what they're seeing and experience with them what they're experiencing, was really, really valuable,” Denevan said.
“We wouldn't have gotten that kind of insight had we not approached it this way and have that 'beyond device testing,' as we call it,” she said. “It was really great to see that, and it was really useful for us.”
Supplementing this qualitative research they received from UserTesting with their own quantitative research, Alaska began to uncover some major themes and see how those themes resonated with their broader audience.
Additionally, the airline did innovative testing using card sorting, prototype design testing, and unmoderated tests to explore the check-in kiosk experience for guests, as well as tested their sales and marketing messages to make sure they were setting the right expectations in advance of customer flights.
“As we put all of that data together, we then look at how can we get these insights that we need? We see there's a problem, but how can we understand more of the why around that?” said Amanda Stockbridge, a product designer at Alaska. “And it's a process to help us identify there are bigger problems, but where can we start and where can we move the needle? And get into more of those user insights that we can get through UserTesting.”
Implemented nearly 100 safety-related initiatives based on user insights
Awarded the Diamond status in ‘APEX Health Safety’ audit for ensuring the highest standards of cleanliness and sanitation
Commitment to customers listening rewarded with increased brand loyalty
