United Making Employees Attend Compassion Training

United Airlines is requiring an estimated 30,000 customer-facing employees to attend training sessions to help them better understand how to handle customer service issues with a smile.

According to CNBC.com, United recently revealed a new customer service education program called core4, a four-hour training session meant to help employees become more efficient while also ensuring operations are safe and passengers remain satisfied.

The mandatory classes come after a rough public relations year for United, which included the violent dragging incident involving David Dao last April. The backlash the company faced resulted in the airline focusing more on the satisfaction of the customer, but United still wants employees to remain efficient in order to also satisfy investors.

The core4 training program consists of four characteristics; caring, safe, dependable and efficient. Employees will use role-playing exercises to figure out the best way to solve customer service issues and will be taught the importance of listening skills, body language, smiling, speaking with a positive tone, making eye contact and being mindful and compassionate.

“Core4 puts a value on emotional intelligence,” president of the Association of Flight Attendants Sara Nelson told CNBC.

In addition to training all current employees about compassion, United will likely begin to look for qualities such as empathy when hiring a new customer-facing agent or flight attendant. The airline wants employees who can defuse situations before they get out of hand and possibly go viral.

Another way carriers like United and Delta Air Lines are looking to help deal with customers is putting more power in the hands of the employees. By allowing staff members to rebook passengers, switch seats and make other changes in the heat of the moment, customer satisfaction should continue to improve.

United was recently named one of the top US airlines for 2018 by The Points Guy.

United is also helping alleviate some of the pressure on its employees by making improvements to its on-time performance, ranking first among United States airlines in December 2017. If fewer flights are delayed, canceled or overbooked, passengers will have less to complain about.