Paperless Customer Journey – JetBlue Deviceless Boarding
JetBlue Biometrics – Innovation and Disruption
This year, JetBlue entered the ranks of the innovators who disrupt industries by applying customer experience technology. They not only imagine the future. They build it. With award winning facial recognition boarding technology JetBlue previews the future of travel.
So the fact that JetBlue’s facial recognition trial was named as one of the 100 greatest innovations of 2017 by Popular Science is a major signal to the airline showing how excited the public is about innovation in the airline space. JetBlue realized customers are not just ready. Indeed, they are eager to step into a world of new experiences that are personal, helpful, and simple.
So, why is it so hard to eliminate friction points on the travel journey and enable repeatable, intuitive, and empathetic experiences when we fly?
Variability is almost impossible to manage
In the book “Uncommon Service” Frances Frei and Anne Morriss lay a whole customer management process for successful brands. They present several examples of Progressive Insurance and Shouldice Hospital. Through different processes these organizations are able to select the right customers for the experiences they built. Airlines cannot do that. An airline can’t choose who to fly. Since the industry is driven by small margins, every customer flown counts.
JetBlue’s mission to bring humanity back to air travel drives the company to welcome on board anybody who would like to fly. All our products and experiences are designed with that in mind!
Integrated experiences are based on integrated technologies
The future of flying is here only if we are able to integrate virtual reality, biometrics, and other technologies in a meaningful way that adds value. JetBlue collaborated with JetBlue Technology Ventures and Strivr to test VR for training of maintenance crewmembers. The technology is more advanced in helping with decision making and not necessarily recreating the feeling of loading bags under the plane.
For those immersive experiences, the integration, build and scaling of the experiences is much more complex. Integrated and intuitive experiences are not hard to imagine. They are complex to create and personalize.
For JetBlue Biometrics and other Technologies, Somebody has to pay for it
The moment we begin scaling and implementing customer journeys that use technologies of the future, we have to build the business case and its ROI. CFOs see customer experience design projects as process effectiveness work that increases output of existing infrastructure.
Customer experience is much more than that, of course. But knowing your audience is half the battle. Regardless of whether you agree with finance, you need the funding they hold. If you list the funding and maintenance requirements for a VR or a biometric solution very quickly you will see that to extract value from future technologies, you also need other future technologies to be cheaper. We all depend on a faster network (5G, 8G, 10G?) and even cheaper storage (cloud that is free to maintain and does not hit your operating expense every year?). Until that happens, we probably will trial more and scale less.
We all share the excitement for the possibilities that new technologies like facial recognition and VR bring to us today. Some of us even venture to realize and share those possibilities with our customers. Customers have the power to add and co-design their experiences, which is really exciting, too. JetBlue used facial recognition boarding to lead the industry. That innovation was embraced by customers and that is why everyone won at the end!
Hotel Service Recovery Strategies in Action: Real-World Example and Lessons Learned
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NPS Best Practices
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Customer Experience Trends – 8 Actionable Tactics in 2021
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The seamless travel experience we deserve
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The Wholehearted Traveler and Other 2024 Travel Trends
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How to Build a Customer-Centric Culture for Highly Effective Teams
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Keep The Customer Focus in 2018
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Holiday Wishes for Great CX: Career Advice Edition
Every successful customer experience initiative starts with a skilled CX team. Brush up on your CX skills to strengthen the business case for CX; to develop relationships within your organization; and to deliver standout customer experiences in the new year.
Lessons Learned at the Forrester Conference: “Data is the New Sexy”
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3 Call Center Mistakes You Are Making
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Even the US Government is Jumping on the Customer Experience Train
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What is Customer Experience Day?
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Customer Experience, Self Service, and the Gift of Time
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Extend Your Travel Experience Value Proposition
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Leadership During the Pandemic: Guest Post by Rachel Dreyfus
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What is the best question for your CX Survey?
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3 Cost Conscious Mistakes in Hospitality Implementation that Lose Money
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Customer Experience Audit: FedEx Omnichannel Disaster
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Customer Experience Audit: eBay’s Vibrant Marketplace of the Future
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The ROI of Customer Experience
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Brand and Customer Experience – Make the Customer Know Who You Are
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The Biggest AI Mistake Most companies are Making
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Liliana Petrova Talks Patient Experience in Healthcare Podcast
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How to Build Customer-Centric Culture
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Why You Need Culture Not Call Center Training for Customer-Centric CX
If the organization does not understand what customer experience is, you will not get the funding or organizational support you need to build customer-centric experiences.
Hiring Tips: Who Should I Hire First on My CX Team
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Retail Experience Design of the Future
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Journey Mapping to Avoid Travel Horror Stories
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NYC Subway CX Kills Chivalry in the City
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New Frontiers in Passenger Experience: Where is the Passenger in the Urban Air Mobility Ecosystem?
Two years ago, I stood on stage at the Aviation Americas Festival in Miami and asked a provocative question: What if the future of aviation isn’t just about aircraft, but…
How to talk to your CFO about customer experience and revenue growth
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Employee Engagement and Wellness In The Workplace: Guest Post
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Center of Excellence: The Antidote to Failed Customer Experience Programs
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Macy’s Retail Experience Risk: The Billion Dollar Lesson
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3 Customer Experience Strategy Lessons for 2023
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How Seamless Customer Journeys Drive Revenue
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Customer Experience Audit: Mobile Provider Eliminates Remote Workforce
How to balance the efficiency call center metric FCR (first call resolution) with wait and talk time? JetBlue promotes human interactions as a brand promise.
What is Customer Experience for Built Environments?
A tweet grabbed our attention this week: “The Atlanta Airport (ATL) designers were like ‘and then what if we had them run 5k?’” In addition to making us laugh, this…
Bad Travel Experience
As we come to the end of the summer season, it is time to talk about travel – good and bad travel experience. And how the sharing economy has both…
Do You Know Why The Iconic Brand Toys ‘R’ Us Closed Doors Despite All Our Memories? #RetailBlues
The year is 2016. You are the CEO of Toys ‘R’ Us. Your brand still controls 13.6% of the toy market although the company is highly leveraged, a strategy of…
Is Covid19 What We Needed to Build Seamless End-to-End Travel Experience?
On January 10th, we published an article called The Future of Travel We Deserve. In it, we laid out the foundation necessary to implement innovation at scale. Four months later,…
2021 Customer Loyalty Strategy – Relationships over Transactions
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How to Solve the 2025 Customer Retention Problem
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Human Experience: Do You Really Know Your Customers?
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Aviation Industry, Coronavirus Isn’t the Only Thing Killing Us
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Customer Experience Tips and Best Practices In 2017?
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How to Prepare for AI: Dispatches from CR Summit, Charleston
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CX Skills Builder: How to articulate your CX Value and secure your budget
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What is Journey Mapping?
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Web Experience is Having a Comeback
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Can One Email Build Loyalty? #MYWESTELM
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Why I Don’t Love Chatbots
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Customer Experience Audit: Uber Bets On Self-Driving Cars With Big Volvo Purchase
The question that remains unanswered is who will be part of the future of transportation. Uber is going for the vertical integration – the whole pie. The future industry of urban transportation will be made of players in three different categories: cars, self-driving software, and ride-sharing network. In contrast, Lyft approaches the future through partnerships.
Paperless Customer Journey – JetBlue Deviceless Boarding
JetBlue Biometrics – Innovation and Disruption This year, JetBlue entered the ranks of the innovators who disrupt industries by applying customer experience technology. They not only imagine the future. They…
Why Millennial Investors are Abandoning You
It’s time to talk about the Millennial investor, a critical market for financial services firms in the next five years. For the past decade, the media talked about the impact…
Celebrate National CX Day
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How to Build Your Customer Experience Roadmap?
This summer, The Petrova Experience conducted a Customer Experience Preparedness Survey. One of our questions assessed brand maturity in terms of customer experience strategy. Only 28% of the respondents had…
How @T4 makes real customer experience impact
Today we share our impressions from visiting our welcoming host Chad at JFK Terminal 4 in NYC. We also celebrate Chad as an effective Customer Experience professional/practitioner. His work is…
What is the Real Cost of Employee Experience?
There are two types of leaders (and organizational cultures) that stand to benefit most from improving employee experience. The first kind have 40% or higher turnover and think their frontline…
How to approach Return-to-Office Resistance
There is a general resistance to return to office. People do not want to go back to the pre-pandemic office routine, particularly to a 5-day-a-week, in-office schedule. Out of ten…
The Invisible Friction Points Weakening Manufacturer Customer Experience
For years, manufacturers have competed on product quality, operational efficiency, and price. Our current environment of supply chain volatility, talent shortages, and the elevated customer expectations in the “experience economy”…
What is Human-Centered Design and how to Leverage it in 2021?
At its core, design is about value creation. In the world of Customer Experience, value-driven design requires CX professionals to use empathy to imagine a future customer experience that is…
How Facial Recognition Works for Your Customers?
One of the hurdles for Customer Experience Consultants like us is proving the business case for bringing us on board. Leaders often think that if they talk about being customer-centric…
Autonomous Customers, Traveler Privacy and More Questions for CX Professionals in a Changing World
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2026 Customer Experience Trends Every CEO Should Watch
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Think Strategically about Telehealth in 2021
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#CXTHUS Exchange Insights – winners and losers?
Attending a customer experience conference is a significant investment of time and money. Even if you are speaker at the conference, like I was last week, the time away from…
Am I A Good Candidate For A Customer Experience Role?
People often ask me what experience they need to be a good fit for customer experience roles.
The ROI of Customer Experience Programs
What customer experience is, and how well brands think they are executing customer experience, and how well they are actually doing it are often at odds. According to Bain, 80%…
Customer Experience Design – How Do You Want Customers To Feel?
Last week, we talked about CX Design in terms of space and function. Today, we continue our customer experience design journey to talk about the design of emotions and feelings. All…
What is Taxing Your Customer Experience?
In our customer experience consulting engagements with organizations from travel and transportation to corporate environments, we see the same six challenges to delivering seamless customer experiences. The struggle to deliver…
CX Skills Builders: You May Have a CX Job and Not Know It
Last week we talked about the identity crisis of CX professionals and we urged you to fix any small problem or seam on the customer journey in order to build internal brand equity and buy in.
What is Missing in Customer Experience Today?
Customer Experience is failing. According to Forrester, US Consumer Perceptions of CX quality are at an historic low. Post-COVID the quality of customer experience eroded every year across the three…
How to make work at home work?
Post-COVID employee experience is a top priority of every HR executive. Most executives I know are losing sleep over this piece of organizational culture. Their challenge is to design the…
From Pain Points to Magical Moments: Transform the Customer Experience
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United Airlines Culture Problem
I am often asked what organizational culture is. Frequently, I meet with executives who are feeling defeated by the scale and complexity of leading cultural transformations. So, where do you…
When There is No Chat in Chat Support
Today we talk about chat support best practices, the customer experience VALUE that it creates, and the ROI of the business case to implement it. Although we are skeptical about…
What Holiday Parties Teach about Hospitality
Last week The Petrova Experience, like many companies, hosted our holiday party. In good customer experience fashion, we put significant effort into finding the perfect location. We agonized over the…
How a Failed Bus Experience becomes a Rally Cry for Passengers
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Employee Centric Culture – Culture is King
In 2017 we introduced our ROI series recognizing the challenges all customer experience professionals have to obtain funding for CX initiatives and to prove their positive returns. Our second ROI…
What is Big Data and Why Should I Care?
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Customer Experience Best Practices for 2018?
The JetBlue blog features Liliana Petrova in a new four-part series. The series is on Customer Experience and Customer Experience Innovation. 2017 Lessons Liliana gathers insight from 2017 customer experience…