How Breeze Airways delivers ‘Seriously Nice’ Customer Service Without Voice

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Breeze Airways is a new airline with a fresh perspective on travel. In this episode of Radically Personal, I chat with my good friend Danny Cox, Vice President, Guest Experiences at Breeze Airways, about merging technology and kindness to be Seriously Nice™.

Danny’s desire to be Seriously Nice isn’t new. It stems from a boyhood moment when he criticized some kids on a playground, and they, in turn, stole his favorite hat. A young stranger named Raymond fixed the problem without caring who provoked whom. Danny got his hat back and gained an appreciation for the serious business of “niceness.” Now, Danny runs a team of “Raymonds” — people devoted to doing the right thing in any situation.

“Is it seriously nice to have someone wait on hold…no matter how kind and how gentle and caring that person was at the other end, if it’s been a half an hour, or an hour, is any of that seriously nice?”

Danny Cox

Vice President, Guest Experience, Breeze Airways

If you start a new airline, you can question standards that harden over time. For instance, Danny asked, “what if we omitted our 1-800 number to improve the guest experience?” Breeze Airways’ digital-first approach exchanged a traditional “call center” for a voice-less “contact center” and connected to customers just like customers connect with friends and family. So, instead of waiting an hour on hold, guests raise a concern, go about their day, and are notified when the problem is solved.

The results? SMS and social messaging channels deliver solutions at speeds that amaze Breeze guests. While many still think voice is the backbone of customer care, Danny discovered that in more than 500,000 interactions, only 0.2% of them needed to be handled by phone.

“My advice is, don’t open a call center, make sure you open a contact center… It’s a digital first approach.”

Danny Cox

Vice President, Guest Experience, Breeze Airways

While Breeze Airways strives to infuse every interaction with kindness, the essence of a Seriously Nice experience is one where the traveler spends more of their time how they choose. In other words, Breeze wants to give their guests a sense of agency. They’re so intentional about it they named their customer care department the “Guest Empowerment Team.” This name underscores the team’s strategy to return power to the guests.

Here’s an example of how it works. Every airline experiences harsh weather at some point. To deal with stranded customers, airlines centralize the solutions behind a desk in an airport, and employees struggle to distribute dwindling hotel bookings while travelers wait nervously in line. But instead of putting customers at the mercy of an employee behind a desk, Breeze gives guests control. While still on the plane, travelers can choose a generous amount of Breeze miles or appropriate compensation to book a hotel room. Guests now have the power to pursue their preferred solution without waiting in line for a compromised remedy.

Breeze Airways lives up to their name—making travel a breeze from reservation to take off. Guests aren’t treated as tickets or bookings but as people to empower through a commonly stressful time. Danny’s team at Breeze wants to be the best part of a guests’ day, which is, well, Seriously Nice.

Get a full transcription of this episode and listen to more episodes on Gladly’s Radically Personal Podcast page, Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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