Designing the Travel Experience: Understanding Customer Expectations and Improving Bus Interiors

1. Designing the travel experience PhD Student: Rui Carreira1, Supervisors: Lia Patrício1, Renato Natal1, Chris Magee2 1 - Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal 2- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Email:ruicar@fe.up.pt

2. Outline Introduction Study of bus customers’ travel experience - Qualitative - Quantitative Concluding remarks

3. Motivation Understand Customer Expectations (experience requirements) Bus (technical specifications) Satisfaction/ Loyalty behavior Customer perceptions Customer Experience Sensorial Emotional Relational Concrete requirements Emotional requirements ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Design

4. Experience is “the internal and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company” (Meyer and Schwager, 2007) Experiences are increasingly important to differentiate and add value to products and services (Verhoef et al., 2009) Experience-centric services: customer experience is at the core of the service offering (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2009) Emotional and non-functional requirements are considered less explored than other needs (Dahan & Hauser 2001; Patricio, Cunha, Fisk & Nunes 2004) Six dimensions of the customer experience (Sensorial, Emotional, Cognitive, Pragmatic, Lifestyle and Relational components) (Gentile, C., Spiller, N. & Noci, G. , 2007) Motivation

5. Designing the travel experience User testing Study of customer travel experience Prototype development Improve travel experiences New bus interior concepts Innovative translation methods Translation of experience requirements into improvement specifications Generation and selection of new bus interior concepts

6. Outline Introduction Study of bus customers’ travel experience - Qualitative - Quantitative Concluding remarks

7. Study of bus customers’ travel experience Qualitative study Observation and interviews Performed to passengers and other users (e.g. bus driver, tour escorts) Objectives In-depth understanding of tourist travel experience process; Identify most important travel experience factors and emotions Methodology User observation of activities and interaction Written notes of every observed occurrence Open-ended questions Recorded interviews and their content analysis

8. Study of bus customers’ travel experience Sample description Weekly river cruises that include bus excursions Sample: - 25 users: tourists, tour escorts and bus drivers - 6 different nationalities (England, Scotland, France, Finland, Switzerland and Portugal;

9. Experience Requirements (ER) Accessibility Comfort Safety Visibility Information Time Cleanliness Atmosphere Study of bus customers’ travel experience Qualitative results Emotional component • Excitement • Joy • Peacefulness • Surprise • Boredom • Relief • Anger • Fear • Discontentment Sensorial Component • Vision • Audition • Smell • Touch • Taste Relational Component • Willingness to talk • Social role • Disturbing passengers (Privacy)

10. Outline Introduction Study of bus customers’ travel experience - Qualitative - Quantitative Concluding remarks

11. Study of bus customers’ travel experience Quantitative study Objectives Exploratory Factor analysis to examine the underlying interrelationships (correlations) between variables Methodology Pre-test: cognitive interview (i.e. think out loud protocol) performed with 10 passengers Questionnaire delivered after bus trip Principal Component Analysis (Hair et al. 2009) - data reduction is a primary concern, focusing on the min. number of factors

12. Sample definition 10 different European countries, as well as the USA, Australia, Canada and South Africa, with a wide range of professions October and November 2009, during 11 weekly cruises 188 questionnaires (30 %) were returned by 80 males (42.5%) and 108 females (57.5%). Study of bus customers’ travel experience Quantitative study

13. Varimax rotated factor reliability Study of bus customers’ travel experience Quantitative study

14. Outline Introduction Study of bus customers’ travel experience - Qualitative - Quantitative Concluding remarks

15. Concluding remarks Conclusions • Experience-centric service: • Comfort and Accessibility • Service • Safety • Visibility • holistic experience • (before and after the bus trips) • Opportunities to improve NPD, but also transportation service by • improving the vehicles

16. Concluding remarks Future Research • Study of the needs of other bus users: regular bus passengers – qualitative already performed • Estimate the impact of Experience Requirements on positive emotions, which in turn generate high satisfaction • Comparison of the identified ERs with the design criteria set by vehicle manufacturers • Quality Function Deployment (Hauser and Clausing, 1988) or Kansei Engineering (Nagamachi ,1995) try to address the incorporation of customer Experience Requirements

17. Designing the travel experience THANK YOU! QUESTIONS? SUGESTIONS? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PhD Student: Rui Carreira1, Supervisors: Lia Patrício1, Renato Natal1, Chris Magee2 1 - Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal 2- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Email:ruicar@fe.up.pt