How JetBlue Topped Its Industry In Customer Service–Through Company Culture And A New Breed Of Technology

If you were to call JetBlue today, the first voice you’d hear would be Frankie Littleford’s, who’s been the sound of the airline, via its IVR system, for decades. More significantly, Littleford is in charge of maintaining and improving JetBlue’s relationship with its customers as JetBlue’s vice president for the customer support experience, operations and recovery. (She must be doing something right, as JetBlue topped the airline industry in overall customer satisfaction this year, according to JD Power, in a tie with Southwest.)

That the dice would roll this way, however, wasn’t easy to predict. In fact, when Littleford initially got the call from airline industry pioneer David Neeleman in 1998 letting her know that he was starting a new airline and wanted her help, she flat-out told him, “that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard,” this in spite of the two having worked together closely at Morris Air, which was later absorbed (as were Neeleman and Littleford) by Southwest Airlines.

Her refusal of Neeleman didn’t stem only from the industry’s ongoing 1990s free fall. It was also a response to Neeleman’s insistence that his new airline, which he first called NewAir before changing the name to JetBlue, would distribute its entire contact center operation among employees working at home in greater Salt Lake City. “Airline contact centers in Salt Lake City were my specialty,” says Littleford, “and I knew–or thought I knew–that this was 100% crazy talk.”

But, as it goes in fairy tales, Neeleman called her not once but three times in quick succession. With each call, Littleford could feel her resistance weakening until, on that third call, she told him, “All right, count me in,” explaining that, “I still think you’re crazy, David. It’s just that you’re my kind of crazy.” (The idea that she was most dubious about, the work-from-home contact center operation, proved to be an early win for the new airline. “It got to the point that I could hardly keep up with all the companies that came calling, wanting to be shown how JetBlue had made a distributed call center work.”) 

Of course, it’s not just where an employee works that matters. More important is how they’re treated. “When we decided that our mission would be ‘to bring humanity back to air travel,’ we knew we would have to build a great culture internally or great customer service would never take root externally, with the traveling public. We needed to build a culture of respect, trust and communication, a culture where we take care of each other.”

You can see this in the big things and the little, says Littleford. “We call our employees, regardless of position, ‘Crewmembers,’ and that’s how we strive to treat them: as being as essential to the JetBlue experience as the actual airplane crew. We also work hard to maintain a similar attitude toward the companies we do business with, whether they’re supplying airplane parts or software; around here, in fact, it’s taboo to use the word ‘vendor.’ These are business partners, not vendors, and that’s how we think about them and treat them, and how we expect them to treat us in return.” 

Employee buy-in to this egalitarian mindset has at times led to internal debate. A case in point was the decision, in 2016, to introduce the Mint class of service, a coast-to-coast JetBlue offering that’s akin to traditional carriers’ first class cabin, although typically offered at a lower price. 

“When Mint was proposed, the concern and consternation within our company was intense. Some crewmembers felt that to introduce what was in essence a first-class cabin would betray the JetBlue mission,” which they interpreted as bringing humanity to all customers, with no additional kowtowing to the privileged few. “Ultimately, we decided we needed to move forward with Mint to be competitive in the business market. But it was a decision that could have gone either way.” 

(As a frequent business flyer myself, I want to give a tip of my hat to Mint, which is easily one of my favorite domestic first class experiences. But I do understand why its introduction would have sparked internal debate. With the cabin crew that serves Mint passengers receiving extra training in service and hospitality, it’s understandable that there would be predictions that this would ultimately downgrade the main cabin–“core” as JetBlue calls it–service experience. But I could also see that the potential of being chosen to work in Mint could become something for employees to aspire to, and that the fine touches delivered there could ideally cascade into other roles in positive ways. Littleford: “My feeling is this is how it has worked out. But definitely those concerns were ones we had when we introduced the product.”) 

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As the years have passed, JetBlue’s ability to provide superior customer service has relied on radically upgrading the technological backbone of the airline’s customer support operation. One change in the consumer landscape sparking this change is the reality that customers contact the carrier so often via digital means, rather than solely by telephone. JetBlue’s response has been to work to ensure that, regardless of channel, or channels, of contact, every customer would continue to be treated as a living, breathing human being, rather than as a ticket number.

The technology solution JetBlue settled on is called Gladly, and it’s so central to the JetBlue approach that the airline’s venture capital arm, JetBlue Technology Ventures, chose to invest in it financially two years ago. “It’s essential that we provide a personal, helpful and simple experience for our customers,” says Littleford. “The platform helps us do this by making sure crewmembers have the right information at their fingertips when customers move between communication channels. Likewise, when a customer interacts with us once and then contacts us at a later date, expecting to be able to pick up where they left off, it facilitates that as well.”

In the future, Littleford aspires to bring this functionality, currently only available to contact center employees, to airport and in-flight personnel as well. If this ambition bears fruit, it will help avoid scenarios where employees are reduced to making generic small-talk like, “What brings you to the airport today?” Staying up to date on information passengers have shared previously, paired with the availability of NFC (near field communication), employees may soon be able to avoid an inappropriately cheery greeting like that one ifthey know, say, that a family is traveling to a funeral. Littleford caveats her enthusiasm, however, with a desire to “never cross the creepiness line. For example, if cabin crew told me, ‘I saw you took the tomatoes off your salad last time; should I leave them off this time before I serve you so they don’t go to waste?’ as a passenger, I wouldn’t think, ‘oh how lovely and thoughtful.’ I’d think: ‘Whoa there–that’s a little too intimate for my comfort!’”