Taking the Customer Experience to New Heights

This episode features an interview with Dr. Rachelle Ornan, Director of Cabin Research and Passenger Experience, and Associate Technical Fellow for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, specializing in the experience and design of commercial aircraft interiors.  Before planes, she worked on spacecraft as a Human Factors Engineer and Industrial Designer for NASA.  We talk with Rachelle about idealized design, balancing art and science, and what it takes to create a peaceful space to house the stress of travel.

3 Takeaways:

• Customer experience includes elements that reach the end-user  on a subconscious or emotional level.
• Consider all potential users when designing a customer experience.
• Customers may have generational differences in what they expect from the experience.  Up-and-coming generations are often looking to be treated to an aspirational experience they don’t get anywhere else.

Key Quotes:

• “There is a transformation that happens when people feel part of something – when they actually feel moved by the experience. That’s the kind of research that we invest in and those are the kinds of insights and design nuggets that come from a really deep-seated place, an emotional place, a human place. When we translate that into the built environment, you’ve got a lot of people nodding their heads and getting on board.”
• “I think that’s kind of aspirational – to get treated experientially…being treated to a beautiful interior that’s nice, clean, bright, well lit and people are smiling and happy to be going somewhere. I think that makes everybody feel good.”
• “I really believe that travel helps economies. It connects us to each other. It pulls people out of poverty…This is the big stuff that I think Boeing connects the world to.”

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This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they’ve created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.