The scenario
Pogo Airlines (a fictional company) cares a lot about their customer experience and are often praised for their friendly customer service and responsiveness. They value kindness, service, safety, and purposeful curiosity. They’re called “Pogo” because you can quickly hop to wherever you need to go.
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In their efforts to grow in the millennial travel space, they encountered two problems:
(1) Difficulty managing call volume and social media queue of support requests―before and during a customer’s flight
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(2) Customers asked the same questions but struggled to find the answers on the Pogo Airlines website and mobile app
Source: UX Writers Collective
What I did
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Established the chatbot's goals in line with Pogo Airlines' brand goal, and decided on key intents
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Created the bot's personality with the target audience in mind, and chose a name
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Used the flow map and chatbot writing best practices to write a script
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Used the script to design an interactive chatbot prototype to hand off to the dev/engineering team
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Tested and edited, tested and edited, tested and edited. Oh, and tested and edited some more
Research
Research (via UX Writers Collective) showed Millennial customers use the Pogo Airlines mobile app to find the answers to their questions. However, it required navigating the app to hunt for the right info or workflow to make any changes or updates, which ultimately proved problematic for many. One study found that 86% of Millennials are disappointed by bad mobile experiences.
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Depending on the urgency, some picked up their phone and called, but this usually involved lengthy hold times, navigating an account, and sometimes being transferred numerous times. The majority of customers used social media (Facebook Messenger or Twitter) to contact the airline, so speed of response was incredibly important.
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In order to keep customers happy and establish brand loyalty, Pogo Airlines decided to take a more proactive approach to support by implementing a chatbot. Also, none of their competitors were using one, so they figured it would give them an advantage in their market.
These were the common questions from potential customers before travel:
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Where can I travel on my budget?
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Are there any travel deals this month?
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Will this flight drop in price if I wait to book?
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How many frequent flyer miles do I have?
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Where can I go with my frequent flyer miles or points?
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And these were the common questions from passengers closer to the date of travel:
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Is there Wi-Fi on board? Is it free?
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What are the food/drink/entertainment options for my flight?
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How much does it cost to check a bag?
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What gate does my connecting flight leave from?
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What’s the terminal for my flight?
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Which gate do I leave from?
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Can I rebook or cancel my flight?
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Chatbot goals and key intents
Based on the above research, these are the goals the bot was designed to achieve:
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Give trip destination recommendations
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Self-serve flight rebooking
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Self-serve in-flight resolutions (flight tracking, checking Wi-Fi information, gate information, in-flight entertainment, etc)
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Check flyer miles balance
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Subscribe to deal notifications
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And these are the key intents the user would be able to accomplish within the experience:
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Get personalised trip recommendations
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Plan a trip based on budget
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Rebook a flight
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Check a flight status
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Check frequent flyer miles balance
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Get pre-qualified for an airline credit card
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Subscribe for deals
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Resolve an issue
Chatbot personality and name
Using the above research, I created a personality for Pogo Airlines and the bot. I also chose a name for the bot (Jetta). I love creating personalities for brands. Given Pogo Airlines was clear about how they wanted to come across to their target audience, creating their personality wasn't difficult to do. Here's what I came up with along with the research-backed reasoning behind my choices.
Dialog flow map
This deliverable posed a challenge because I'm not a frequent traveller and I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the airline industry. But I wasn't put off. I'm determined and I love a challenge. I also love doing research.
So in order to make the bot experience as realistic and practical as possible―especially with the users' needs in mind―I spent a number of hours on the websites and mobile apps of a few real-life airlines. I also spent much time on other websites that provided reliable information on the air travel booking process and overall flight experience.
I was thus able to get a good enough understanding of the information and various steps required to make for a complete and realistic airline bot experience.
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With that new understanding, I drew a detailed flow map of the dialog to appear within Jetta's experience, based on the key intents decided upon. It took quite a bit of time, but I'm very detail-oriented. And I still did some editing thereafter to ensure it captured all the necessary information and steps.
Script
Now that I had a good enough understanding of how an airline operates, and with my flow map completed, I needed to create a script detailing all of Jetta's dialog. This was time-consuming and required a fair bit of editing to get right (as I said, I'm very meticulous). But it was a good opportunity to put my creativity to work, which I relished.
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With the personality guidelines in mind, I used the flow map along with a custom template and chatbot designing best practices to come up with this.
Chatbot prototype
Using a tool called Botsociety, I used my script to design an interactive prototype to hand off to the dev/engineering team.
I was already familiar with the tool, having used it for my Armstrong project. Still, the Jetta prototype took a substantial amount of time to design as well as test and edit. But it was well worth it. I had a great deal of fun as I worked to satisfy all the needs of Pogo Airlines and their customers. I even went a little beyond, as I saw there was room to do so. I always look for opportunities to go above and beyond in my projects.
All in all, the entire project took roughly two weeks to complete. I'm extremely pleased with the end result!
💡 Please note:​ Due to Botsociety discontinuing their product, my interactive prototype is no longer available. Below is a video of the experience.
