Challenge
The challenge was getting everyone to see the value in creating a customer journey and dedicating time to hold a workshop to address it. It was not a task that could be completed by one person, specifically the designers, and it required the customer and user to be at the centre of the conversation.
Impact
The workshop led to the creation of ideas that targeted pain points for both customers and team members, and the resulting service blueprint is still used today by the executive team, new hires to learn about the company's work, for presentations at board meetings, and by the marketing and product team.
Goal
There was a lack of understanding and alignment around the customer journey and needs. This resulted in a lack of cohesive strategy for improving the customer experience.
01
Understanding
Context
VINN is a omni-channel online e-commerce marketplace platform and vehicle expert service. All departments were working synonymously without a clear understanding of how each department overlaps.
Problem Statement
The goal is to create a shared understanding of the customer's goals and barriers, and the team to walk away from the meeting with priority and focus.
Discovery
As the first designer and researcher hired by the company, I faced the challenge of working without existing research and unclear data.
To understand the car buyer's journey at a dealership, I conducted extensive research.
Due to time constraints, I couldn't conduct customer interviews, but I relied on secondary research, phone calls with experts, and a listening tour with stakeholders to identify key areas, assumptions, and hypotheses.
Uncovering the Pain Points of Car Buyers and Internal Teams
Initial customer journey created after first round of research
💡 A few important internal realizations:
No alignment of customer types between departments
No alignment on customer touch points (Website vs Marketing Landing pages)
Wasting time and resources due to lack of communication
02
1| Perspective Grid Workshop
Why a perspective workshop?
It focused on generating and evaluating ideas from multiple perspectives (All teams)
It helped prioritize and refine people's ideas based on their feasibility and potential impact, and value to the customer
Created alignment between the team
And most importantly, it focused on the wants and needs of the customer from a user and service point of view.
The perspective workshop layers - zoomed in.
The different customers type brainstormed by the team (eventually narrowed down)
The perspective grid workshop prevented premature jumping to solutions and helped identify biases from the start.
2 | Prioritizing opportunities
The opportunity tree was useful in identifying themes derived from the perspective workshop and their connection to the available opportunities for enhancing the customer experience.
Although it facilitated the identification of themes across various ideas, it did not address the dynamics of team collaboration, our internal interactions and challenges, or the nature and timing of our interactions with the customer. This information was essential for improving the customer experience.
Identified 3 areas of desired outcome
03
Driving Results
Service Blueprint
A service blueprint ended up being the perfect solution. Instead of just focusing on the customer journey, the service blueprint highlighted internal actions, which was a key pain point identified during the workshop.
This made the blueprint a driver for participation and impact, rather than just a stagnant artifact.
The service blueprint is still used today as a valuable resource for improving the customer experience at VINN.
Service Blueprint Zoomed in
The top page was our blog. Blog topics related to best, value, and lifestyle.
04
Key Results
Understanding the team and demonstrating the value of service design
In the future, I will understand the team and their work processes before running a workshop. This will help me tailor the workshop to their needs and influence their mindset. I will also treat each workshop as a teaching opportunity and emphasize the value of our work, finding ways to incorporate it into daily tasks.
Interactive and engaging Service Blueprint for ongoing improvement
I will make the final service blueprint more interactive and engaging by creating a printed version and holding meetings to review progress, changes, and metrics. This will help the team share insights and improve the customer journey over time.