Service Design Project – ‘Making Baggage Better’

The Problem

Baggage handling is big business. With over 100,000 flights per day across the world, and multiple business providers, interconnected systems, and human beings, it’s no wonder airlines have a hard time keeping track of luggage.

At Academy Xi, we partnered with Qantas, Australia’s largest airline to help them understand the current end-to-end baggage handling process – from drop off, to pick up, and recovery – and find opportunities to improve it.

The Brief

How might we help Qantas deliver an excellent customer experience by improving baggage handling services?

The Process

Following a Human Centered Design process, the project ran over 10 weeks and included primary research in the form of contextual studies, stakeholder and customer interviews, service safaris, and discovery sessions. Gathering all these data points we analysed and synthesised the data collected, developed insights and then framed problem statements – off which we ideated and co-created solutions with business stakeholders.

Along the journey, we delivered Service Design artefacts including, Service Blueprints, Personas, Customer Journey Maps, Idea Canvases, and Service Storyboards.

The Research

Our research found that a group of customers were overpacking their bags when going on holidays. Packing over the weight limit (or close to it) meant that it was hard to manoeuvre their bag throughout the airport, and at their destination – making for an unpleasant start to their holiday.

For the airline, a heavier bag means more weight to carry on the aircraft, and more weight means more fuel is burnt – costing the airline hundreds of thousands of dollars each day.

The Solution

Fly Light Rewards

An innovative way to reward passengers for packing under the weight limit. The more passengers pack under the limit, the more frequent flyer loyalty points they received from the airline.

This solution provided a way to delight customers – by helping them shed unnecessary options from their suitcases – and delivered a low cost way to leverage existing brand assets (loyalty points) for the Airline.

By putting the customer first, we created a better brand experience, and found a new reason to join the loyalty program – in turn helping more customers fly more often.

The Service Blueprint