​Challenge
​Deliverables
Roles
Design a new training board game and app for Sainsbury’s colleagues to provide better customer service and show the friendly image.
service blueprint /system map / mid-fi product / app / video prototype
User research / Concept development
RespondU is a training system that can enable Sainsbury’s colleagues to deliver high-quality customer service by sharing experiences and understanding customers' needs.
Problem statement
How can we enable Sainsbury's colleagues to best respond to 'in the moment' customer queries?
Research
Assumptions
So we used 5W-1H to unpack our assumption of the customers. We wanted to find the typical user group that could better study the relationship between colleagues and customers. In the end, people with food allergies were chosen because we assume that they may have a lot of questions when going shopping at Sainsbury’s and the staff may better help them if they have a better standard of services. This user group could also spread to a larger target, such as the green energy focus and the healthy focus.
Design Outlines
This is the outline of our design process. We started by conducting user research from the customers' point of view to find out their pain points and then we began to research Sainsbury’s colleagues to know how they respond. These questions and the two aspects were brought together to analyse and generate our final solution.
Status Quo
We conducted secondary research from three points for food-allergic customers. They are concerned about ingredient information a lot, so they have to spend more time comparing products for Sainsbury's free-form area.
Sainsbury's also highlights common allergens on food packaging. But there are still instances where they buy the wrong foods.
As for colleagues, they need to multitask and answer questions simply and the quality is mostly based on their personal working experience.
Research Method
We conducted our primary research in three ways. Pilot study and observation are to understand the current situation and discover some initial problems.
We want to discover allergic-information-focus customers’ in-store shopping experience and their interaction with colleagues through semi-structured interviews.
Shop tour with Sainsbury's colleagues can understand their workflow and customer service principles.
Pilot Study
In the pilot study, we found that the staffs always look busy, so some customers may feel sorry to interrupt them and the staffs are movable in the market, making some areas have no access to find them. And some staffs are not very familiar with some specific products and need help from other colleagues.
Observation & Interview
In the customer study, we try to discover allergic-information-focus customers' in-store shopping experience, and two different groups were chosen to find some differences (non-allergic people who have allergic family or friends may be allergic-information-focus customers).
And through this process, we discovered a distrust between customers and staff because most of the participants were not willing to ask questions and thought they may have no professional knowledge about allergic information.
Shop Tour
And then we had a shop tour with Sainsbury's staffs and found plenty of resources to support the quality of services. For example, one colleague just confidently handed us the Allergen Information handbook to show her professionalism.
In the staff-only area, there are a lot of service training kits available to teach staffs how to be good shoppers. The customer board also shows a friendly image and they are also the basis for our later design.
Analysis
Data Analysis
Data analysis was divided into four stages.
Data from different research groups were analysed by diverse methods. As for customers, firstly we extracted key information about participants, behaviours, attitudes, emotions, and thoughts from the videos and the transcripts.
Secondly, we classified the key findings in the empathy maps from different participants to get the initial findings.
As for Sainsbury's colleagues, we gained the findings from the videos and the notes in the shop tour directly. We combined these two parts of the findings together and gained insights by affinity diagramming and evaluated insights by metrics. We came up with the following key insights.
Key Insights
From the customer perspective, we realized that customers hope Sainsbury's colleagues could understand their potential needs. They want to be understood during the question without explaining their needs too much.
From the colleague's perspective, multitasks is a big challenge for them. They have limited ability and time to respond to customers' requests.
Based on the current relationship between customer and colleague, more touch points are needed to help customers to trust colleagues' professionalism.
Painpoints
According to the insights, we summarised the following customers' and colleagues' pain points.
Customers limited their expectations of colleagues due to untrustworthy and the customers' potential needs are not perceivable.
As for Sainsbury's colleagues, they cannot respond to customers' requests quickly and completely. Secondly, they have limited chance to improve themselves like the service skills. Thirdly, their values are not reflected during customer service.
Connection
We believe our support and improvement system-RespondU can enable Sainsbury’s colleagues to deliver empathetic customer service for customers who have specific requirements and want to purchase food efficiently.
Key HMWs
Based on key insights, we created several HMWs and pick three from different kinds of directions. First, we want to reduce the response time. Second, we would like to make customer needs visible and perceivable. Third, make colleagues provide professional service based on user needs.
Concept Development
Ideation
The first step was to use the crazy eights to brainstorm practical ideas and then group them based on their key features.
The second step was reflecting on the customer journey and finding out opportunities.
The third step was combining the ideas and the opportunities together. We formed up with customer-based-plan, colleague-based-plan and the smart-system-based-plan by service blueprint.
Initial Concept
After ideation and finding touchpoints between customers and colleagues, we came up with 3 initial concepts which focus on different aspects. The colleague support system is to enable colleagues to learn customer potential needs through training. And to show their strengths and value through visualization like the sticker word ‘vegan’ on the back of colleagues’ uniforms to encourage this type of customers to trust colleagues and ask for help from them. This interaction can show colleagues’ value and knowledge that is learned from the training. It requires more colleagues’ participation, which is better connected to the brief. Also, it benefits both customers and colleagues. Wider customers can have a better shopping experience and colleague can show their value and professionalism.
Concept Development
When we decided to choose this concept, we did some development.
Firstly, we simplify the training course of understanding customer potential needs because of the cost of formal training. We change the training into an enjoyable and fun way like a board game. During the game, colleagues need to share their thinking and experience of different customer scenarios, which is a great chance to let them understand customer potential needs.
Secondly, we let colleagues show a friendly image instead of showing professionalism. This is because showing professionalism may cause misunderstanding. Some customers who are not vegan may think they cannot ask some colleagues who have the vegan word on the back, and it also forces customers to learn and understand this information. In addition, we found some discussion on social media. When customers saw the poster that customers can ask friendly colleagues for help, they are wondering how to find a friendly Sainsbury's colleague. We think showing a friendly image will be a good direction.
Thirdly, we add the reflection part in this process to update the database of customer scenario, which make the whole process more sustainable.
Solution
Storyboard
First, we make a storyboard to simply show how our concept works. Alma is a new shop assistant at Sainsbury’s. She sometimes cannot answer customers’ questions better and need experienced colleagues’ help. The experienced colleague suggests Alma join the board game to improve her ability. In this game, Alma understands more about customers’ potential needs by listening and sharing experiences and thinking. At the end of the game, colleagues can get the emoji Velcro to decorate the uniform. After that, customers are easily attracted by emojis and more willing to ask them for help. Alma is more confident and knowledgeable than before. Customers are also satisfied with the service.
System Map
To better explain the whole process of our concept, we use the system map. This customer service improvement system asks new and experienced colleagues to join the board game together. We think new and experienced colleagues may have different ways to think and they can learn from each other in the game. There will be 4-8 colleagues in a game each time. This semi-formal activity could last for 2 hours and hold each month in the staff area when colleagues are off-shift.
Step 2 is the board game, which contains 3 kinds of cards.
The first kind of card is popular questions related to products, like where is the egg. Colleagues need to answer the questions and the manager will give the correct answers. This is to help colleagues improve their professional ability.
The second one is a customer scenario discussion. Colleagues need to share and discuss their answers and decision based on the customer scenario. The customer scenario is that some questions from special customers, like vegans. Also, the manager will share the story of each scenario. So in multiple sharing and thinking, they can put themselves in customers’ shoes and build better empathy with customers.
The third card is to make colleagues share self-experience of solving customer problems. They can reflect on self-experience and learn from each other when they discuss and give suggestions.
Step 3 is when the game ends, colleagues are encouraged to put some emoji in uniform. This helps colleagues build friendly image and attract customers to ask for help. Customers can have a satisfying service experience because colleagues are well-prepared and know their needs well.
Step 4 is group reflection. Colleagues reviewed some questions that they don’t know the correct or better answers. These unsolved or difficult questions would be collected and recorded by the manager. And the manager will post these questions on the board in the staff area to share with all colleagues. All colleagues can share their solutions and thinkings on board together. Questions and scenarios can be updated by these valuable experiences in digital databases.
Key Features
There are 3 key features in our system. In a relaxed and enjoyable situation, a board game enables Sainsbury's colleagues to have a better understanding of customer potential needs by sharing their experience and thinking about scenario-based questions from customers.
The next one is the emoji. We believe emojis on Sainsbury's colleague's uniform can help colleagues show personal values and friendly images, which can motivate customers to interact with colleagues. The visual demonstration can evoke positive emotions and enhance trust.
The last one is a question board in the staff area, which collects difficult or unresolved questions for all Sainsbury's colleagues to discuss after the board game. It enables colleagues to reflect on their performance instantly and continuously so that they have a real grasp of how to answer customers‘ questions. The information and knowledge about these questions can be acquired and reminded repeatedly throughout their working routines. These discussions about customer scenarios are beneficial to updating the database in a digital platform.
Map development
We carried out three iterations of prototyping and user testing to make RespondU useful, usable and desirable. Firstly, we tried to decide what the map looks like. We think RespondU is a happy experience to study with low stress. So we need an appropriate rate of different kind of questions. Our team used the low-fi map to do the testing and make some additions to make sure the whole game is simple and understandable.
Body Storming
After generating the mid-fi prototype, we used body storming to test if these three features are combined effectively. We found that we should revise the questions on cards to better remind users their past experience and motivates them to express more. And we also considered the way of updating the question database. An app interface is designed to collect real experience from Sainsbury's staffs.
User Testing
Finally, We conducted the final user testing. Through the outcome of the testing, the number of questions on cards was revised and we reinforced the link between cards and map.
We also found that a real story can help users to have a better understanding of each answer. So we added a function which is users can scan the QR code on the card to learn the relevant background stories of each user scenario.
Interface Design
Here is our interface design. We built the online question collecting database to make our questions more realistic and abundant. When users scan an allergic user scenario card, a story of a real allergic comes out to help them build empathetic mindset.
Card Design
Here is our car design. The first one is an orange card representing some products related questions like where the egg is.
The second one is the purple card representing customer scenarios. For example, a pregnant woman is standing in a free form area and cannot find nut-free bread. What should you do? The players need to share their thinking based on their working experience and discuss a better solution together.
The third one is green card representing self experience sharing. There are some keywords and an emoji on the card to help colleagues to recall their memory.
RespondU
Lastly, let me show our final design of RespondU inspired by the experience of customers.
Shopping in Sainsbury's helps our colleagues to have a higher standard of customer service and the slogan is Queries, Respond and Satisfying.
Video Prototype
Benefit & Future
Potential Business Benefits
The potential business benefits of RespondU are reflected in the following three areas.
For the customers, we think the RespondU could improve the customer experience. It can provide three kinds of questions to help colleagues understand customers’ needs and it creates new communicating chance with customers.
For the colleagues, RespondU delivers emotional value to customers in the service, which makes the communication more like human to human. We think the RespondU can establish service process and clear process ownership to our colleagues. In short, it affirms what colleagues are. It means that the RespondU colleagues support system clarifies the service content and process. RespondU contains supportive training resources and experience sharing, which recognizes the colleagues‘ value by reward mechanism. RespondU helps colleagues to discover their own value which in turn helps them to recognize the importance of serving customers. And the second point is empowering colleagues. Colleague driven approach supports the continuous updating of the question bank and provides highly relevant materials to further explain the value of the service and help colleagues improve their understanding of customers. These measures further recognize and develop the value of colleagues’ work and allow them to see the possibility of their future career path.
For Sainsbury's, customer service creates service value. It transfers the value to the customers. Firstly, the company builds a competitive advantage and ultimately expand sales, which in turn bring more customers. Secondly, RespondU will not only improves customer service, but also communicates the same brand image to customers through the actions of colleagues and increases customer loyalty. Thirdly, building question bank of RespondU can create users' profiles. A database is a business objective and the question database update mechanism of RespondU will help them with it.
Future Plan
We have an implementable development plan for it.
In a half year, we want to establish a sustainable mechanism. What we want to do is to finish the system that is common in all Sainsbury's stores in the UK.
In one year, we would like to establish a nationwide network collaboration system. We want to build the connection between stores to support Sainsbury's colleagues nationwide to communicate valuable experience and knowledge with each other. And updating question banks from all the colleagues in the UK. They can build up the question bank together and share.
And in three years, we want to establish an authority in the industry. We want to develop a reputation for high-quality customer service in the UK.
