Customer Experience interview prep.

Behavioural questions to expect

1. Walk me through your background + path into airline customer experience.
2. Tell me about a customer experience programme, journey, or shift you've owned end-to-end.
3. Why airline customer experience vs ground ops, cabin crew, commercial, or brand marketing?
4. Why this operation type - legacy full-service, low-cost / ULCC, regional, premium / international?
5. Why the firm?
6. What's your read on our customer experience scorecard + journey performance + recent customer moments?
7. Tell me what you understand about our DOT customer protection + IROPS recovery posture.
8. Walk me through a service recovery you owned - delay / cancellation / oversold / bag / accessibility failure.

Technical concepts to master

• Customer journey + moments of truth

  End-to-end journey - 7 stages · Moments of truth (MoT) · Journey map + Voice of Customer (VoC) · Premium + loyalty journey · Digital + self-serve journey

• Service recovery + compensation matrix

  Service-recovery paradox · Compensation matrix · DOT 250 IDB / VDB (denied boarding) · DOT 259 customer service plan + tarmac delay · DOT 2024 refund rule

• NPS + VoC programme design

  Metric stack - NPS / CSAT / CES / GSS · Survey design + sample discipline · VoC governance cadence · VoC platforms - Medallia / Qualtrics / InMoment · External scorecards - JD Power / Skytrax / APEX / ACSI

• Accessibility + SSR codes + CRO programme

  ACAA / DOT 14 CFR Part 382 · SSR (Special Service Request) codes · Complaint Resolution Officer (CRO) · DOT 2024 wheelchair handling rule · Service animals + emotional support animals

Practical drills

• Your carrier carried 5M pax last quarter. NPS is +22 (38% promoters, 16% detractors, 46% passives). DOT-reportable complaints ran 1.4 per 100K. A pilot service-recovery programme on 2% of pax saved 70% of disrupted-customer churn (vs 40% baseline). Average ticket value $310. Walk through: (a) detractor + promoter count; (b) DOT complaints absolute; (c) churn-saved revenue from the programme; (d) what compensation budget per disrupted customer it justifies. Show your numbers.
• You're CX duty manager. Thunderstorms have cancelled 40 flights at a hub, stranding ~6,000 pax. Social media is lighting up with photos of long lines + sleeping pax on the floor. A local TV news team is on property. 50 of the cancelled flights have international connections (EU + Canada). Walk through your decision-making + execution.
• You're customer experience manager at a station. A WCHC pax's personal wheelchair arrives at baggage damaged - frame bent, joystick broken - on a Friday evening international arrival. The pax is connecting to a 90-min ground transfer + 3-day onward trip. Same week, a WCHS pax was left at the gate without boarding chair assistance and missed the flight. Walk through your response + program design.

Smart-question anchors

• NPS / VoC scorecard + JD Power / Skytrax / APEX position + trajectory
• DOT customer-rights posture + DOT 2024 refund + wheelchair rule implementation
• Service-recovery + compensation playbook - agent empowerment + matrix + IROPS cadence
• Journey + moments-of-truth investment - digital, premium, loyalty, accessibility
• Contact-centre + digital service - in-house vs outsourced, channels, AHT / FCR / NPS

Sourced from

DOT 14 CFR Parts 234 + 250 + 259 + 260 + 382 + DOT Air Travel Consumer Report + DOT 2024 rulemakings (refund rule + wheelchair handling rule) · IATA Passenger Experience publications + IATA Resolution 753 + IATA SSR codes · JD Power North America Airline Satisfaction Study + Skytrax World Airline Awards + APEX Official Airline Ratings + ACSI Airline benchmark · Forrester + Medallia + Qualtrics + InMoment CX benchmarking publications + HBR / Bain service-recovery research · EU261 / 2004 Regulation + Canadian APPR + Skift + Aviation Week + APEX / IFSA + airline trade press (Air Transport World, Routes, Glassdoor airline-CX interview threads)