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The Experience Process how to innovate with the experiences we take for granted

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Scripts and Processes Two ways we define experiences

The majority of service experiences take place through processes. These are the sequences of activities that customers have to do to complete a transaction or service, such as registration, payment, or check-in. We often get very comfortable that these work in the way they have always been done, but there may be a number of potential “pain points” in the process that serve as catalysts for innovation.

Scripts

This booklet looks at examples of these, and leading examples of innovation that have designed those pain points out. At a higher level, our entire experience may be governed by a script. This is where the customer (the “actor”) has an experience that is directed through specific steps. Scripts tend to be identical across brands, so that a “typical” restaurant (see script below) functions in a recognisable way, as does a supermarket, a theatre, a cinema, or an airport. Innovation can occur through creating new narratives.

FIND WAITER

01

ASK FOR BILL

02

PUT CARD OUT

05

CHECK BILL

04

WAIT FOR CHIP/PIN

06

WAIT FOR BILL

03

PAY

07

£?

FINDING

01

BOOKING

02

ARRIVING/SEATING

03

CHOOSING

04

EATING

07

SERVING

06

CLEARING

08

ORDERING

05

PAYING

09

LEAVING

10

The Restaurant Script

The Restaurant Payment Process

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“Services should be seen as scripts. All services are delivered according to a

script, which directs the parts played by the actors involved. Service innovation

comes from rewriting scripts so the action unfolds in a different way. It is very difficult for service producers to innovate unless the users also adopt

the new roles in the script.”

-  Charles Leadbeater, 2006 Innovation Expert

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Scripts Innovation in Retail Scripts

Innovation in Restaurant Scripts

BROWSE STORE

01

TAKE ITEM

02

QUEUE TO PAY

03

GIVE ITEM

04

PAY

07

ITEM BAGGED

06

ITEM SCANNED

05

The Traditional Script

BROWSE CATALOGUE

01

CHECK STOCK

02

NOTE ORDER REF

03

QUEUE

04

COLLECT

07

WAIT

06

LEAVE

08

ORDER/PAY

05

The Argos Script

Bricks and Mortar retail has seen little innovation in the basic script, even with the rise of technology and the internet as a shopping force. The customer browses the store for inspiration, takes items and puts them in their basket, makes their way to the check-out, and passes over their items to the sales assistant, who scans and bags them before they pay and leave.

Argos was one of the early pioneers in this regard. They noticed that a customer pain point was in the browsing experience: not finding what they wanted, because their choice was limited by the display stock in-store. Argos brought together an instant browse and collect model by combining the pre-web catalogue with a clever back of house warehouse and collection system. The customer chooses their item from the catalogue, checks it is in stock using small terminals by the catalogues, records the product ID on a slip of paper, queues, orders and pays, before a short wait for their product to be delivered down to the collection point.

LEAVE

08

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Scripts Innovation in Restaurant Scripts

Customer Choice with Scripts

FINDING

01

BOOKING

02

ARRIVING/SEATING

03

CHOOSING/SERVING

04

LEAVING

07

PAYING

06

EATING

05

The Yo! Sushi Script

FINDING

01

ARRIVING/SEATING

02

CHOOSING

03

ORDERING

04

EATING

07

SERVING

06

LEAVING

08

PAYING

05

The Nandos Script

Creating different scripts is not for everyone. After all, it creates an education issue for new customers, who may feel intimidated by an unusual way of doing things. That does not mean, however, that it cannot be successful, and doing it can lead to significant innovations.

Yo! Sushi have efficiently combined the steps of choosing, ordering and being served by using a conveyor belt system, popular in Japan. This creates a very different service experience, and encourages more impulse purchasing. Nando’s blends fast food principles in a restaurant environment by putting payment upfront in the process, enabling them to reduce the role of waiters to simply serving and clearing, and hence reduce cost. This does cause some customer issues regarding placing complex group orders, however, and may reduce impulse purchases later in the meal.

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Scripts Customer Choice with Scripts

How can we innovate?

The previous examples have shown fairly rigid scripts; i.e. there is no other way to eat at Nandos or shop in-store at Argos. But the blurred line between scripts and processes is when customers have choice as to how they go through a script. This can be evident at, for example, Starbucks. Starbucks have two primary scripts: the drink-in script, and the take-out script.. Once upon a time, the drink-in script at a café involved sitting down at a table, waiting for the waitress, ordering a coffee, and waiting for it to be served. Starbucks innovated with the ordering, payment and collection processes, which allowed less serving staff in front of the counter (creating business efficiency) significantly decreased the amount of time the customer spent waiting for the delivery of their Peppermint-White-Chocolate-Mocha-Venti..

The Starbucks In-store Take-out Script

LEAVE

06

The Starbucks In-app Take-out Script

LEAVE

08

PAY

04

ORDER

03

COLLECT

06

WAIT

05

CHOOSE

02

QUEUE

01

COLLECT

04

CHOOSE DRINK

02

SCAN TO PAY

05

CHOOSE STORE

01

SEND REQUEST

03

Starbucks are still innovating, however creating an app to allow ordering en-route to the store, eliminating the “pain point” queue and in-store ordering processes, and changing the emphasis to a collection process. This will lead to faster transactions and a higher turnover of customers, and means the “take-out” script will have two alternatives (secondary scripts): “in-store order” or “in-app order”.

 

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Scripts and Process How can we innovate? à  Identify pain points using ethnography

Where is the current script or process causing the customer to experience stress, hassles, confusion or frustration? This might not be as obvious as the traditional “pain points” of queuing and waiting. For example, a retailer might discover that a significant portion of their customers are browsing, even taking items off the shelf and putting them in baskets, but not going through with the transaction. Why? Pain points are any moments which get in the way of customer needs. Ethnography – particularly active observation of customers in live environments – will find out what the customer wanted to do, not what they were forced to do.

à Design strategic customer journeys from different customer perspectives that design out the pain points

The strategic journey asks “what would an experience or journey look like that met customer needs, within the boundaries of what the organisation can achieve?” The purpose is to step out of the existing process and ask how best customer needs could be met, but in a way that avoids – as much as possible – the existing pain points. This should be repeated for different customer types to understand how the strategic journey could vary in response to different customer needs. Attention must be paid to organisational constraints – in particular with an eye on the budget if new technologies or spaces are identified as crucial to making the journey work.

à  Identify the overarching script or process that suits all customer needs and organisational needs

Once different strategic journeys have been designed, the overarching new process or script can be identified. This may have major implications on technology and space, and so is not always as simple as just implementing. However, it does give form and justification to the development of new technology, and identifies how the endgame will look like from a process perspective. This process, unlike the high level versions we’ve presented here, should also map the interaction between customer actions and staff actions, both front line and back office.

The Hotel Check In

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designed around the reception desk and check-in process. This process is a chore and a painful part of the arrival experience. By reengineering the process, could we revolutionise the

hotel lobby?

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How do customers feel when they arrive at a hotel? Logically, they usually have come from somewhere distant), travelled by car, bus, train or plane. Their destination is their room, to drop off their heavy bags, get showered, get changed, relax, eat, sleep… essentially, to shift from public space back into personal space. The traditional hotel lobby forms a barrier to that destination, the check-in process is a chore to complete. No matter how beautiful or interesting the lobby, it is to be appreciated later, when suitcases have been deposited. Innovating around this process, therefore, would effectively aim to remove it almost completely, or at least to reduce the time taken to go through the process. Moving the process out of the lobby into environments (such as the airport or station) that are still “in transit” also reduces stress in the arrival experience. Smartphones are clearly poised to create more flexibility in this regard.  

DIRECTION / INFO

06

THE STEREOTYPICAL HOTEL CHECK-IN PROCESS

HILTON CONCEPT PROCESS

The process of checking in commences with the arrival in the lobby, whereby the customer finds the check-in desk. An agent will verify their booking details, take a pre-authorisation of a card, and ask

Automated check in points within third party locations, such as the airport, allow a more seamless flow for guests when arriving at the hotel. Service machines provide guests with control of their own reservation preferences.

Process The Hotel Check In Process

PRE-AUTH CARD

03

VERIFY

02

CHECK IN DESK

01

ISSUE KEY

03

them to sign a room ID card to carry with them on-site. Their room key, usually a card, will be generated, and they will be given directions to their room and information about breakfast times.

This concept is to be tested by the Hilton in Honolulu International Airport, where they will have Hilton guest service agents to provide help and advice with the systems. The machines also generate key-cards and printed directions and information.

ROOM KEY

05

INSERT PAYMENT

CARD

01

OPTIONS

02

SIGN ROOM ID

04

The Airport Check In

DIRECTION / INFO

04

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The “landside” zone in an airport has to manage thousands of people

queuing for check-in. It is complex in terms of way-finding, and how different

areas relate to different flights. If the check-in

process was minimal, the terminal could look very

different.

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The modern airport terminal is often split into three parts: landside, where customers arrive and check-in, security, and airside, where customers wait and board their planes. The landside of the terminal dedicates significant space to check-in zones, with different airlines taking different zones or desks, and often many thousands of people arriving to queue. Reducing this dependency on static desks will change the face of the terminal. This is happening in two ways: low tech, where the customer checks in at home and prints off their boarding pass on their home printer, and high tech, where airlines (like Qantas, right) supply cards and card readers to provide a more flexible experience, backed up by a phone app.  

SHOW BOARDING

PASS

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THE STEREOTYPICAL AIRPORT CHECK-IN PROCESS

QANTAS CONCEPT PROCESS

The pre-security airport queue, in busy times, can be a lengthy and stressful beginning to a vacation. It culminates in a relatively slow manual check process at the desk: your identity and flight details are checked, baggage weighted, seats allocated, and

Qantas are creating a premium service whereby a Qantas Card allows customers to self check-in at a “Q-Card Reader” at the airport with just one touch. It is linked to intelligent “Q-Bag Tags” that allows customers to, again, scan their card at a self bag drop

Process The Airport Check In Process

ISSUE BOARDING

PASS

04

WEIGH BAGGAGE

03

SECURITY QUEUE

05

SCAN CARD

04

SELF BAGGAGE DROP OFF

02

SECURITY CHECK

05

IDENTIFY

02

CHECK-IN DESK

QUEUE

01

CHECK IN CARD SCAN

01

SECURITY QUEUE

03

boarding pass issued. Only then can the customer pass into the second, hopefully marginally faster, security queue, where they show their recently issued pass and then go through a bag check and body scanner.

point, and load up their pre-tagged suitcases. The card then doubles as a boarding pass through the rest of the in-terminal experience, such as in the security line and at the boarding gate.

SECURITY CHECK

07

The Supermarket Check Out

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The supermarket check-out still persists despite two

attempts to eliminate it: scan as you shop, and self service kiosks. It is highly

inefficient and a significant pain point in the shopping experience. Eliminating it would create significantly

more space in supermarkets.

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The supermarket checkout has long been regarded as ripe for change and innovation. Scan As You Shop, introduced over 15 years ago, has still struggled to find consumer adoption and encourage first time use. Self service kiosks have seen much wider adoption, but have an unintuitive user experience that only marginally improves the actual check out process, predominantly because the queues are shorter only due to many people still choosing the staffed checkouts. Technology creates the opportunity to radically rethink the problem. A concept proposed by IBM in 2006, right, works to eliminate the checkout entirely whilst also avoiding some of the user issues around Scan As You Shop. It does, however, feel like it has a lack of closure, and relies on cheap RFID tags to be incorporated into every single product, a solution potentially still logistically unfeasible at this time, and potentially still too expensive to implement.

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THE STEREOTYPICAL SUPERMARKET CHECK-OUT PROCESS

IBM CONCEPT PROCESS

There is almost nothing about the traditional check-out queue that is not, arguably, a pain point, except the actual act of paying and being given the receipt. Customers search for the smallest queue, unload everything from their trolley onto a conveyor belt,

IBM’s concept (2006), uses RFID tags on products as an unlock that allows all products to be put in the trolley, and be collectively scanned on exit, with the customer then being charged automatically, and being given a receipt.

Process The Supermarket Check Out Process

BAG AND REPACK

04

STAFF SCANS

03

PAY

05

AUTO PAYMENT

02

UNLOAD TROLLEY

02

QUEUE

01

FULL TROLLEY

SCAN

01

wait whilst other customer transactions in front are completed, and as the staff scans through their shopping, they re-bag it up and put it back into a trolley.

The auto payment step would be achieved by associating the goods with the user at the moment of scan, potentially also via RFID. The receipt at the end of the process acts as a kind of psychological closure to the transaction.

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The Bank Self Deposit Process

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Despite so much of our banking experience

becoming digitised, the “deposit” experience is still so manual. “Quick deposit” envelopes eliminated the need to queue for a staff member, but still involves many details to be filled out, and is disconnected

from our “live” bank balances.

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The retail bank has seen relatively slow innovation in the last century, with the basic form only being challenged and experimented with fairly recently. Despite the massive shift in consumer habits towards digital banking, there is still a need for customers to occasionally deposit cash – and cheques, until 2018. The traditional process, queuing to deposit directly with the teller, is still possible, but the alternative, using self deposit envelopes, has been available for many years, and was designed to cut down queues. The new process, also several years old now in some banks, simply takes this very manual process, which involves filling out all the customer’s bank details by hand, and makes it more efficient and convenient by using the debit card to circumvent filling out those details.

THE STEREOTYPICAL SELF DEPOSIT PROCESS

RBS SELF DEPOSIT PROCESS

The cumbersome part of the self deposit process, from the customer perspective, is undoubtedly having to fill out their bank details and the breakdown of the cash or cheque amounts.

The more innovative process is simple in retrospect. Instead of writing out account details and sort codes, the debit card is used to link an envelope with an account.

Process The Bank Self Deposit Process

FILL OUT CONTACT DETAILS

04

FILL ENVELOPE

03

POST ENVELOPE

05

FILL OUT DETAILS

02

TAKE SLIP & ENVELOPE

01

TAKE ENVELOPE

01

Since the debit card contains all the critical data anyway, and the customer will always have it with them, it is highly efficient and convenient.

EXPRIES: CARD NO:

CONTACT NO:

FILL ENVELOPE (CASH+RECEIPT)

05

ENTER CARD

02

ENTER CASH

AMOUNT

03

POST ENVELOPE

06

About Us

This manual process introduces a high human error margin into the experience, besides its basic inefficiency.

GET RECEIPT

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Flywheel is a design consultancy specialising in innovation and strategy around customer experiences within bricks and mortar environments. We have a decade of experience working on the design of innovative environments across sectors and believe space and technology should be designed around people. We have two directors: We have several internal staff, plus a range of associates that we bring in on a project by project basis. These include service and product designers, specialising in user centred design processes, as well as space planners and interior designers. We also have partnerships with other organisations, including technology consultancies, that allows us to bring the most appropriate team together. We specialise in projects that fundamentally challenge the way environments support experiences, and thrive on challenging briefs and the opportunity of innovation. Selected projects include:

•  House of Fraser: we evaluated two new concept stores – their .com order and collect offering – through the customer perspective, and created a strategy for change prior to national rollout.

•  William Hill: we are working with one of the UK’s largest bookmakers to help them understand the nature of horse racing and football punters, and how they could improve their experiences. This forms the cornerstone of on-going strategic and implementation work.

•  Delfont Mackintosh Theatres: we worked with the Prince of Wales Theatre to identify how to improve the customer experience to generate a higher spend per head. We identified over 35 concepts, half of which were no cost changes, that could increase spend per head by an additional 55%.

•  Croydon Council: we identified an experience led spatial strategy for the design of a new public services access hub. We created a customer centred approach that radically shifted the kind of experience they were providing.

•  Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: we developed a

new self service strategy, and looked at the spatial, technological and informational needs of the service.

•  Croydon Council: we identified how a unified customer experience between library, adult education, council services and JobCentre+ could translate into the spatial renovation of an underutilised building.

•  Space for Personalised Learning: we led the largest ever action research study into the design of future schools around the principles of personalised experiences, instead of mass education, creating ten pilot schools.

Tom Weaver

Tom Weaver has a background in strategic design of environments, as a former Associate Director of DEGW, and has led a variety of large scale projects around innovation and space for the government and private sector.

Chris Evans

Chris Evans has a background in technology and operations. With experience of developing large scale data management systems in both large and small organisations, Chris specialises in the impact of technology on the design of physical environments.

About Us

The End

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Copyright © Flywheel Ltd 2012 www.flywheel.org.uk