Cancelled Flight, Broken App, No Answer – Why Airline CX Keeps Failing at the Worst Moment

Jeannie Walters and Dr. Alyona Medelyan reveal what nearly 2,000 unfiltered airline reviews say about the chasm between brand promise and operational reality, and what CX leaders must do about it. 

In this CX Today discussion, host Rhys Fisher, Associate Editor, sits down with two leading voices in customer experience: Jeannie Walters, CX expert and author, and Dr. Alyona Medelyan, CEO of Thematic. Together, they've co-authored Experience Is The Promise, a data-driven report analyzing nearly 2,000 App Store reviews across six US airlines using Thematic's AI scoring agent. 

If you lead a CX, contact center, or service team, this one is unmissable. The findings cut through the brand-speak and get to what customers are actually experiencing at the moments that matter most. 

When things go wrong, a cancelled flight, an app that won't load, a support line nobody answers, that's the moment a brand either earns loyalty or loses it for good. This conversation, backed by real customer data, explores exactly why so many airlines are falling short at those critical touchpoints. 

Key discussion points: 
🔴 Recovery beats reliability – Delta's Empathy score outpaced the group average not because it never fails, but because its people, processes, and tools are designed for disruption moments. Jeannie unpacks what that strategic commitment actually looks like on the ground. 
🔴 The compounding failure problem – Alyona's data shows 60% of negative reviews cited inability to reach support during disruptions. When the flight fails and the service fails, the brand takes a double hit, and customers don't forget it. 
🔴 Your app is your frontline – App crashes drove 9.5% of Breeze's negative Ease score. Alyona draws a direct parallel to banking data from Asia, where app instability alone triggered switching intent in 5% of users.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello and welcome to CX Today. I'm Reese Fisher, Associate Editor, and today I'm very fortunate to be joined by two guests. I'm here with Jeannie Walters, CX expert and author in the space, and Dr. Aliona Medelian, the CEO of Thematic. Thanks for joining me. I hope you're both well.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Thanks. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yeah, and uh yeah, I appreciate you making this work, especially you, Aliona. I know you're uh it's pretty late where you are over in Singapore, so thank you for making the time.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Cool. So today, you know, I think it's gonna be a really interesting chat. We're gonna be discussing some uh some research that you both worked on, uh entitled Experience is the promise, that's sort of looking at customer experience, but more specifically within the airline sector. I think more specifically again within the US airline sector. I guess, Jeannie, I want to come to you first. You know, I've gone through the report and I, you know, it it starts with quite quite a bold statement, really, this idea that customer experience is fundamentally misdiagnosed as messaging instead of what it really is, which is management discipline. How often do you maybe still see that misdiagnosis play out in the space? And why do you think it's so hard for organizations to fix that?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Well, I I see it all the time, frankly. And I think part of it is that when we don't look at the non-obvious places to get feedback, we miss some of those signals. And that's what was so compelling about the research that we were able to do with them at because by looking at, you know, spontaneous essentially reviews from people, you're getting the real emotional connection for when in those high-stakes moments. And I think sometimes we assume that we have the whole picture in customer experience because we do surveys or because we have certain tools, but we're missing entire parts of really understanding who our customers are. And if we don't understand fundamentally the promise that we've made and how it's interpreted in the world, then it's very hard to deliver on that. And we see that all the time, which is why, you know, I talk about this in my book and other places, but we talk about having the right mindset, strategy, and discipline. And if you don't have those three things, it's very easy to make a lot of assumptions about how we're delivering in the market. And that's what I thought was so compelling about what we found.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, Aliona, I wanted to come to you next, I guess, you know, uh from the thematic perspective on the methodology of the research, because I thought it was quite interesting. You know, you you analyzed, I think, around 2,000 unstructured app store reviews uh using your AI scoring agent. I was wondering for CX leaders who rely heavily on more traditional structured surveys like your CSAT, like your MPS, what can a those spontaneous unfiltered reviews tell them that those other surveys can't?

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yeah, absolutely. The I have a PhD in specifically extracting insights from text. And I graduated in 2009, and this was around the time when the first language model emerged. And at thematic we started applying them to customer feedback. But it's only this year that the models became accurate enough to distill any piece of feedback and into predicting what sort of survey response somebody would give if you were to send them the survey, because they already shared what their experience was like, how they thought about the baggage fees or the customer service. Um in the in your app review, sometimes they share it in a complaint or in call center. And so you don't really need to send them a survey to understand what they're thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. I wanted to come back to you, Jeannie, another, I thought, an interesting part in the report. Obviously, Delta was kind of one of the better performing airlines in there, and I thought it was interesting that kind of its edge wasn't necessarily in it, you know, never failing because no company does that, but it was more in its recovery process. You know, its empathy score was uh a little higher than the average. What do you think Delta does differently in those, I guess, disruptive moments compared to other companies that could give uh contact center leaders a really interesting insight?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, I think a big one is making service recovery a strategic decision, like deciding this is how we're going to handle things and knowing what are we promising when things go wrong? Because things will go wrong. And I work with a lot of organizations who have wonderful aspirational customer promises. You know, they say things like, we're going to deliver exceptional service every time to everyone. And I want to say, like, no, you're not, because we are living in a world that can be disrupted. And airlines are such an interesting model for this because we've all been there in those high-stakes moments of disruption. And there are things that happen that it's out of everyone's control. So, how can we help the team leaders, the people who are on the front line? How can we make sure our tools, like our apps, are up to the task of helping someone in that disruption moment in a way that is empathetic? And if we're not thinking about that, if we're not applying the real promise that we've made to customers and that they understand across the entire journey, including moments of disruption, then we're not living up to the promise and people feel that. And that shows up based on the operations. So I think that Delta is literally leading in a strategy of making sure that when things go wrong, the people, the processes, the tools, the technology, they're designed around that moment. So once you have enough trust with customers, when things do go wrong, they're going to give you a little bit more leeway as well. So you have to live up to that promise leading up to that moment of disruption as well. So that is something that I think every organization can learn from because we cannot just plan for ideal scenarios. And unfortunately, I see that a lot too.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

There's actually this. Oh sorry I interrupted you. Um I just wanted to bring up a related, a related point. Um, so I'm at CX Asia at the moment in Singapore and presenting very similar kind of findings that we found here. And there was one airline um in India that collapsed similarly to Spirit, and their brand promise was joy. And you just cannot deliver joy when there's a moment of disruption, right? So your brand promise needs to be something that can live and support your team and frontline uh members through moments when things will inevitably go wrong.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah, and we we use something called a CX mission statement for that purpose because you you want to be, of course, a little aspirational, you want to deliver your best, but you have to ground it in reality. And the real question to ask is how do we want our customers to feel? Because even if it's a moment of disruption, they can still feel valued, they can still feel connected. There are certain things, but they might not feel joy in that moment, right? So it's a great point that we have to really connect with real emotions and the reality of the world that we're living in and the world that our customers are living in. They don't wake up thinking about our brand. They don't wake up and think, oh, goody, I get to call customer service, right? And so we have to make sure that we're helping them achieve the goal that they want to achieve in the best way possible in that moment and within that context. So it's a great example of something that sounds so good. We would all want to deliver joy, but we have to be realistic about everything.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, because how how would you even quantify something like joy? I think, especially in an airline environment where even the best series in the world, you know, would all travel, they're long days, they're not they're not necessarily the most joyful experiences, even the best experiences. So you're almost setting yourself up for a little bit of a forward.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah, I found that whole uh empathy section in the report super interesting. You know, it described that compounding effect, you know, you get the disruption and then the sport experience actually makes things worse. I was wondering, Aliona, you know, based on the reviews that you guys went through, what was were there any trends in what was actually going wrong at those initial customer service contact points?

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Yeah, there there were definitely trends, and um I just looked it up in in the data, and the number one um 60% of people mentioned just being difficulty reaching support via phone or other online channels. So a lot of wait time, not being able to connect. And um, in those moments they needed urgent um help and they couldn't get it. So that's the number one. Um, and then um disruption, when disruption happened, not actually being able to get resolution. So, for example, um no um compensation or accommodation offered, um, no alternatives, uh no clear remediation, um and kind of like lack of empathy as well, as you know, when they talk to support and then they they just feel like they're not being um heard or uh treated as a human in a difficult situation.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

And you know, I'd add to that that not being able to reach someone is also a sign of a lack of empathy if you think about it that way. So sometimes I think we we apply empathy as only in those human-to-human interactions, but really empathy is something that we we should think about throughout every point of the journey. Because if and this actually happened to me, I won't name the airline because this wasn't part of the research, but I was literally standing in line, and it was a rare moment where I was checking luggage, because I almost never check luggage, right? But I was standing in line behind three people, and the cutoff point came, and the people in at the desk turned around and went to the back. And there were four of us in line with our luggage, and we weren't allowed to check in. And we had all been there, we had all been in line, so it didn't make any sense, but they didn't care. And when I called about that, the uh the person I spoke to said, Oh yeah, that that airport is really notorious for that. And I was like, think about that moment. She showed empathy when I called her, but the lack of empathy leading up to that moment colored the whole perception of the brand. And obviously, it's not built into the training and the operations and just the process of what happens when things are not going exactly according to the plan. So I think we have to expand our thinking around empathy and how to apply it throughout the customer journey.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah, yeah. I think, and without stating the obvious, it's the travel industry, it's already such a stressful environment, isn't it? You know, we've all been there, flight's been cancelled or delayed, and everything's a little bit up in the air, you don't know what's happening. That's kind of an environment where you want that empathy to be at top level, like you say, Jeannie, not kind of lacking or yeah, it's uh it's a double whom you also, I think, given the stressful nature of this industry.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yep, yep. And and to be fair, we also have to ask that passengers sometimes show empathy too, right? We've all seen that too, where people are treated very poorly by passengers and customers. But I think part of that is because people have defenses up, they've been treated poorly in the past, and so they're they kind of come in thinking that they have to stand up instead of just having that conversation or figuring out where to go.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. I wanted to go back to you, Aliona, kind of talking about that. One of the the big kind of uh friction points was not even being able to get hold of customer service agents in these stressful times. And I was looking at some of the information around technology, and I think it was app crashes alone drove uh 9.5% of breeze's negative e-score. You kind of you make the point that for a lot of customers the digital experience is the brand. I was just wondering, what does the data tell us about where the digital and the human support layers need to kind of join up a little bit more and need to be a little bit more connected in that regard?

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah, um again, I'm here in Singapore at CX Asia and analyzed 7,000 reviews from the biggest uh banks in the region. And apps crushing and app stability is the number one issue that's driving the app score down. And um, there's one trend that was really interesting in February. The CM um the people weren't able to actually use the app to make payments, and five percent of them said, I'm considering switching. And this is right there in the data, in in the app experience, it's critical to um how people want to operate today, right? They want to get things done on their phone, so it needs to work.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, some really interesting findings there. I guess I want to move on to almost kind of the recommendation section of the report because I thought some really interesting stuff in there. I think you identified three things that have to work together uh mindset, strategy, and discipline. I guess there's a question for both of you, but Jeannie, if you want to jump in first, you know, in your experience, which of those three is perhaps the most common failure point and how do brands go about addressing that?

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and this is um this was a really exciting part of the collaboration we had with the Matic because we were able to really kind of test some of the theories of my book, Experiences Everything. And it this is how it showed up all the time. And so one of the things that I see is that when we talk about mindset, it's very easy to assume that when we say, well, deliver a great customer experience, everybody knows what that means. But what we really mean there is an aligned mindset around what is the promise that we made, how do we show up for customers no matter what, and what is it that we're proactively trying to get them to feel? How are we helping them feel valued or appreciated or all of those things in every moment? And that extends past those human moments into things just like Aliona was mentioning with if the app crashes, that's going to generate anxiety and that's going to create uh disruption in what they're trying to do. That creates certain things. So we have to really understand every single person in the organization has to understand what is that promise that we've made and how does that show up in my role? And I see that often we kind of skip that part. We don't talk about a clear, defined vision of the experience we want to deliver. And frankly, you can't deliver on something that isn't defined. And so that's the piece that I see most often either overlooked or just um, you know, something that is a little obtuse, like a very aspirational brand promise, but not connected to okay, what does that mean for our operations, our process, our people, all of those things.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Um yeah, and from my side is really the the discipline of um once you have these found uh this foundation set is to actually measure how well are we delivering and looking at the data and educating everybody on when things go wrong. Um and something that we see with our customers is because AI can automate a lot of the analysis instead of spending their time creating reports. Um, now the role of CX changes to actually align everybody on where to get the data, where to get the insights, and then what to do once they see that something isn't working. So more and more time is spent in workshops looking at examples when things didn't go the way they're supposed to, and kind of training every every team and every staff on those aspects. Whereas AI basically makes it easier to for anybody to very quickly ask a question, what what is the part that I am responsible for? And are we delivering on customer experience promise in my area of the business? So now you can measure all of this very easily.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah, it's interesting because obviously we think of AI as this quite complex technology, which obviously is at a level, but the way you kind of uh voice that there, Allione, it's almost a simplification of the process. The openness tool is helping these teams to work in a lot simpler way.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Exactly. It's like a compass. Are we going into the right direction?

SPEAKER_01 18:53

User, you have to know where you're going. Exactly. So you need both. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Absolutely. Um, I guess just kind of to wrap things up a little here, Jeannie, I want to come back to you. You know, the report ends with I think it's decide what good looks like before something goes wrong. I guess for a CX or contract center leader watching this who, you know, wants to follow that advice, wants to start there, what's maybe the first most practical step they can take.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

You know, I really am still a big fan of uh journey mapping, but not necessarily like the big kind of journey mapping. What I want to think about is those scenarios, and you can get this from the data where if you find those uh moments that didn't go well, I love to go back and think about what happened before that leading up to it that could have prevented that. Could we communicate more proactively? Could we have people have more options? So instead of just going through the app, there is an option to call. Because now we're turning off channels in a lot of organizations too. And so looking at that very carefully and then thinking about what if, what if, what if, you know, you've heard of the five whys techniques. Sometimes I turn that into what if, like, what if there's a delay? What if there's this? What if somebody doesn't show up for work? What, you know, really digging into those moments that we know will happen and planning for them and determining what is it that we can do operationally to make sure that we are prepared for those moments of disruption. And really also, I think we have to sometimes take a step back and internalize that these are people's real lives. We're impacting people's lives. So if they can't take that, you know, flight on time, they could be missing something important. They could be missing a funeral, they could be missing an important business opportunity. They could, you know, these are real consequences. And so by understanding that, I think we can also improve the empathy that we deliver as well. But we all get into our own routines and everything. And so it's important that every so often we do take that step back. And that's why it's so important to continually look at what our customers are telling us, what are the operational metrics telling us? What are what is their behavior telling us so that we can continue to plan and improve and just emotionally connect with the people that we're serving.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Yeah, thanks, Jeannie. And uh yeah, thanks to you as well, Ariona. Thanks for your time, guys. It's uh some really, really interesting stuff in there, and I would absolutely recommend anyone watching to take a look at the research. It's while it's obviously an airline focus. I think there's undeniably lessons and insights in there that apply to the wider CX and customer service space, so well worth your time. Um, I would also like to just quickly thank our viewers as well for tuning in. If you enjoyed this, and I'm sure you did, please do remember to like and subscribe to the channel and head on over to cxtoday.com for more stories like this. Until next time, thanks for watching.