How not to boost checkin efficiency (customer experience, travels)
by at 9:52 AM
So, United's check-in kiosk (yes, I know I said I'd never fly United ever again, just like I had said before the previous time I flew United) has gotten even more confusing, just so that they can up-sell seats. On the first upsell screen it asks if I want to upgrade to first class, with a whole bunch of confusing options plus one using 500 frequent flier miles. I figure, sure, it's not like I'm ever going to use my United miles anyway, so I pressed the button, and it asked me which kind of upgrade I wanted to do. There were four options which made no sense, and each with various numbers which I couldn't tell if that was the amount I'd have to pay to actually use i. So I canceled the upgrade.
A couple screens later, after a bunch of 'continue' clickthroughs all on the bottom-right corner of the screen, it asked if I wanted to upgrade my seat again, this time for $29.90, and of course the 'accept' button was where I had been pressing 'continue.' I guess it's good to keep people on their toes when they're just clicking through repeatedly but the fact it's good to do that is only because the interface is so complicated (especially the baggage checking screen, which asks you how many of several different types of luggage you have!) and full of needless upsale things.
A much better checkin workflow would be:
- Find the reservation
- Clearly display all the (simplified) upsale options (upgrade to first class for $whatever, upgrade to first class for some-number-of-miles, upgrade to business class for $29.90) up-front
- Ask if you're checking baggage, with 'yes' and 'no' buttons in the middle of the screen
- If checking baggage, ask if any items are oversize; if so, go to the complex selection screen, otherwise, go to a simple screen with just 'number of bags'
- Print boarding documents and whatever baggage check instructions there are, and thank the customer
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