Girl Gang:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...........................................................................................................2
RECOMMENDATION REPORT...............................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................3
BACKGROUND...................................................................................................................4
METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................5
EVALUATION......................................................................................................................5
RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................11
Page 1
Executive Summary
This report observes, analyzes, and evaluates United Airlines poor customer service practices
and crisis resolution in order to make improvements and recommendations based on the findings.
In this report you will be able to establish practices that help United Airlines to better serve their
customers. In order to evaluate United Airlines we conducted extensive online research from the
San Diego State University library databases to support the following information. Finally, the
report was edited and completed for United Airlines use.
Based on the results of supporting research, we have identified the following areas that United
Airlines needs to improve:
1. Media Control
2. Situation Defusal
3. Problem Solving Approach
Regarding these issues, we have researched and created a list of recommendations the company
can follow in order to avoid additional customer service disasters. The report breaks down the
issues listed above and recommends immediate actions going forward.
1. Create a team of social media experts to monitor and respond to positive and negative
statements released on all social media platforms.
3. Establish a set of problem solving guidelines, focusing on things that will improve
customer satisfaction, such as, compensation, upgrades.
We strongly advise United Airlines to take these recommendations into consideration for the
sake of improving your customer service practices and for retention of current and future
customers.
Page 2
Introduction
Since the beginning of the 1900’s with the first commercial flight, air travel has been one of the
most safe, effective and sought after methods of travel. Whether it’s an instate flight or an
international flight, millions of people fly every day which has ultimately created and fueled
massive airline corporations. United Airlines-being one of the largest airline companies to
date-serves over 1.5 million people per day, leaving much room for error. It’s been clear recently
that United Airlines has suffered many complications with passengers due to the airline’s failing
customer service practices. The decreasing quality of service has led to a large loss of passengers
as well as an increasing number of complaints. We’ve found multiple ways to combat this issue,
few being varying workshops targeting all failing aspects of the system. It’s vital to the lasting
success of this corporation to better the interactions between the employees and passengers or
United Airlines could soon have a drastic downfall. Instilling these changes we have prepared for
you will be incredibly beneficial for survival as well as be supplemental to future growth into
something much larger.
Figure 1
Figure 1 shows the substantial numbers of reported incidents United Airlines faced in October of
2017. Throughout the end of 2017, United Airlines continuously had 13 reported complaints
about customer service, making this corporation the third worst when it comes to customer
service. In January 2018 alone United Airlines grew to 17 complaints, putting this airline at
second worst in customer service. The monthly Air Travel Consumer Reports show a constant
decline in employee-customer relations, a problem we must fix. Source: US Department of
Transportation
Page 3
Background
Due to the incident on April 9, 2017 where a video of two security officers went viral when they
dragged a customer off a flight, United Airlines has faced damaging publicity. A 69 year old
doctor was forcibly removed because the flight was overbooked and four United employees
needed to fly to Louisville. After no one offered to give up their seats, the airline picked four
passengers to deplane and when the doctor refused to give up his seat, the situation escalated.
According to Washington Post “The use of excessive force caused the passenger to hit his face
on an armrest, resulting in a concussion, a broken nose, and the loss of two teeth.” (Andrews, T .
2017). Living in the modern media age, incidents like this are easily recorded and shared quickly
to anyone and everyone. Soon after the incident occured the top trending topic on Twitter in the
U.S. was #NewUnitedAirlinesMottos, with users suggesting slogans such as "not enough seating,
prepare for a beating." (Petroff, A. 2017, CNN).
Addressing Crises
In a statement addressing the situation the United Chief Executive Officer, Oscar Munoz, said “I
deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one
should ever be mistreated this way.” (Petroff, A. 2017, CNN). Though Munoz made an apology
he didn't address the true root of the problem, which angered customers even more. According to
CNN, public relations experts say the CEO should have quickly offered an unreserved apology,
but instead he apologized only for "having to re-accommodate ... customers. Many customers
found the response to be overly callous -- and said so on social media, where video of the
incident had gone viral” (Petroff, A. 2017, CNN). The CEO’s initial response was widely
disappointing and the lack of urgency further damaged their reputation.
A press release concerning travel from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) stated
that United Airlines was the lowest scoring legacy airline. The incident caused a fall in the
company’s stock price. ACSI director, David VanAmburg, claimed that low ticket prices are not
enough of a trade-off for low service quality, because most airlines are competitive on price
(Fornell, A. 2017).
Due to these recurring incidents it is imperative that United Airlines improves their customer
service practices. Based on the company's background, we have utilized various research
methods to identify detailed solutions to this ongoing issue.
Page 4
Methodology
The following methods were used to evaluate United Airlines and create recommendations in
order to develop this report.
○ Sources included articles from Time Magazine and Air Transport World
○ Including statistics from the Air Travel Consumer report conducted by the U.S.
Department of Transportation.
○ Included rearching good customer service and identifying the areas in which
Page 5
Evaluations
1. Media Control
2. Situation Defusal
Initial Altercations
Customer service practices have been put in place to provide the best accommodations and
services possible for the customer since the beginning of time. The airline business in specific
relies heavily on customer service and passenger relations as US airlines tend to over 2.5 million
passengers a day on average. With increasing reports of issues and rising tensions in terminals
and on flights, airline employees are being tasked with the defusal of many volatile situations.
Some airlines have painted poor pictures for their company through these unfortunate instances
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by adding fuel to the fire and engaging in the issues, handling the situations poorly with the
overuse of force, or simply ignoring the problem and letting passengers get physical. Often times
these experiences are altercations between staff and passengers or two passengers themselves,
occasionally turning violent and traumatizing.
Defusal
United Airlines has been found to have more violent altercations with passengers and employees
as multiple videos and witness reports continuously surface. This is the result of not defusing a
volatile situation when needed and instead letting them go too far. USA Today’s online journalist
Christopher Elliott recently noticed American Airlines’ new approach of removing one party
from the altercation, calming them and treating them with nothing but kindness while offering a
solution to the issue. After a passenger refused to sit with a mentally disabled man, the flight
attendant gave the man a new seat and stated that “...she would love to sit with them all flight
long if she could and that they were wonderful companions to fly with” (Ellis, C. & Elliot, C.
2018, USA Today). This simple action stopped a potentially terrible situation and is a practice to
be considered for future issues. It is found that being calm, collected and nice towards passengers
in duress is the key to successful customer relations.
Michael Lapré (2011) acknowledges the importance of knowing how to effectively handle a
customer service failure using problem solving approach, rather than an apology script. The
scripts currently used to solve customer conflicts by United Airlines are focusing on apology and
empathy, which isn’t effective in real situations. Singh (2017) argues that the majority of the
customer relationship scripts that are written by companies to solve conflicts, is not useful during
conflict solving and sometimes may even be dangerous for the customers. Singh (2017) has
found problematics with United Airlines, such as a man being dragged of a plane dramatically,
which proves United's inability to handle customer issues. The scripts for customer conflicts are
currently emphasizing too much on verbal apologizes with little effort on problem solving, which
leaves the customer feeling dissatisfied and often misunderstood. ‘’Too many customer service
scripts overemphasize empathy and apology at the expense of doing competent work to generate
useful problem-solving options’’ (Singh, 2017). For each service failure or upset customer, there
is an opportunity for the airline to correct the mistake and leave the customer feeling satisfied
despite the issue that has occured. If the airlines can learn how to use the correct steps and have
an effective problem solving plan, they can learn how to turn the negative issue into a positive
situation creating a better customer relationship and a better reputation. It is important that
United airlines learn how to correct service failures once they have occurred in order to minimize
the damage, and leave the customer feeling satisfied.
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Recommendations
Media Control:
Curiating and building a strong media presence over platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and
Twitter will allow United Airlines to directly respond to customer complaints. United’s personal
relations department should have a team of social media experts assigned to monitoring both
positive and negative statements released on different platforms and be prepared to respond with
helpful information and solutions to problems. These experts should include individuals who
have a history in media studies and have aided other companies in developing their media
persona. John Rampton highlights in his article, “25 Ways to Grow Your Social Media
Presence,” the importance of identifying goals and objectives, encouraging clients to share and
connect, and to tackle customer complaints efficiently (John Rampton, S. 2014, Forbes). These
focal points are essential for United Airlines to begin to gain leverage across media platforms.
Situation Defusal:
In order to combat the rising issues United Airlines is continuously facing this business should
become more in touch with their employees that deal with passengers on a daily basis and put
them through workshops on customer service. These workshops should include topics such as
situation defusal, how to remain calm and respectful, how to not become physically or
emotionally involved in a situation and how to react to all kinds of situations. United Airlines
needs to make a public effort in having closer relations with their employees, provide more
training and teach them the proper ways of customer service. Journalist Christopher Elliott
quoted Douglas Stolls, a World Airlines Customer Relations spokesman, “‘In this day and age of
social media and the perception that airlines do not care about their passengers, we know now
more than ever how important it is to assist passengers’” (Ellis, C. & Elliot, C. 2018, USA
Today). It seems apparent that airlines are aware of the rising issues and it’s important now for
this corporation to not only be aware, but take action in defusal situations.
Figure 2
Figure 2 shows the initial apology from CEO Oscar Munoz for his employees grabbing a man,
slamming him on another chair and dragging him by his hands out of an airplane. Although a
video apology followed later, this initial apology seen by millions of people was directed only at
other passengers rather than the passengers and the man they assaulted. This is an example of
how the situation was still handled poorly even after the traumatizing incident. Source: Twitter.
Page 9
Conclusion
Thank you for your time and consideration on this customer service improvement project. We
aim to enhance the customer relationship that United Airlines has with its customers, improving
the reputation of the brand on all social channels, and the overall customer satisfaction. During
our research we have found that United airlines has a need for media control, situational defusal
and practicing a problem solving approach. Our recommendations include how to build a strong
media approach, organizing workshops for the employees of United Airlines to effectively
handle situational defusal, and establishing a set of problem solving guidelines focusing on
action instead of verbal apologies to help improve customer satisfaction. All recommendations
have been carefully studied and examined prior to being presented into this improvement plan. If
you choose to adapt these changes, your customer loyalty will increase and the reputation of the
brand will improve leading to more business, and higher customer satisfaction rates. All sources
and material used to provide this report can be found under references.
If you have any additional questions or concerns regarding this project, please feel free to reach
out to us at any time via phone or email.
Page 10
References
1. Waddell, Kaveh. “Why Airlines Can Get Away With Bad Customer Service.” The
4. Walker, K. "WHEN CRISIS CALLS: The Power and Speed of Social Media Make a
Crisis Communications Plan More Essential Than Ever." Air Transport World, vol. 54,
5. Scout, H. “75 Customer Service Facts, Quotes & Statistics.” 75 Customer Service Stats
6. Rampton, J. “25 Ways to Grow Your Social Media Presence.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine,
29 Sept. 2014.
7. Calfas, Jennifer. “United Airlines Removes Passenger: Volunteer Searches Spike.” Time,
8. “'Get off or Pay for Another Seat.' United Customers Share Their Bad Experiences.” Los
9. Elliott, Christopher. “Airlines Are Trying to Be Nice. Did You Notice?” USA Today,
11. Petroff, Alanna. “United Airlines Shows How to Make a PR Crisis a Total Disaster.”
CNNMoney, Cable News Network, 11 Apr. 2017
12. Fornell, Alice. “Press Release Travel 2017.” American Customer Satisfaction Index ,
University of Michigan , 25 Apr. 2017
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