The Experience Process by Flywheel

The Experience Process

how to innovate with the experiences we take for granted

NEXT > Scripts

2 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.

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.

The Restaurant Script 01

FINDING

BOOKING

ARRIVING/ SEATING

CHOOSING

ORDERING

SERVING

PAYING

CLEARING

EATING

LEAVING

The Restaurant Payment Process 02

£? FIND WAITER

ASK FOR BILL

WAIT FOR BILL

CHECK BILL

PUT CARD OUT

WAIT FOR CHIP/PIN

PAY

“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

Innovation in Restaurant Scripts

Scripts Innovation in Retail Scripts 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 instore. 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.

The Traditional Script 01

BROWSE STORE

TAKE ITEM

QUEUE TO PAY

GIVE ITEM

ITEM SCANNED

ITEM BAGGED

PAY

LEAVE

The Argos Script 01

BROWSE CATALOGUE

CHECK STOCK

NOTE ORDER REF

QUEUE

ORDER/PAY

WAIT

COLLECT

LEAVE

NEXT > Customer Choice with Scripts

5 Scripts Innovation in Restaurant Scripts 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.

The Yo! Sushi Script 01

FINDING

BOOKING

ARRIVING/ SEATING

CHOOSING/ SERVING

EATING

PAYING

LEAVING

The Nandos Script 01

FINDING

ARRIVING/ SEATING

CHOOSING

ORDERING

PAYING

SERVING

EATING

LEAVING

NEXT > How can we innovate?

6 Scripts Customer Choice with Scripts 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 takeout 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-ChocolateMocha-Venti..

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”.

The Starbucks In-store Take-out Script

CHOOSE

QUEUE

ORDER

PAY

COLLECT

WAIT

LEAVE

The Starbucks In-app Take-out Script 01

CHOOSE STORE

CHOOSE DRINK

SEND REQUEST

COLLECT

SCAN TO PAY

LEAVE

NEXT > The Hotel Check In

7 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 lobby is often designed around the reception desk and checkin process. This process is a chore and a painful part of the arrival experience. By reengineering the process, could we revolutionise the hotel lobby?

NEXT > The Airport Check In

9 Process The Hotel Check In Process 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 checkin 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.

THE STEREOTYPICAL HOTEL CHECK-IN PROCESS 01

CHECK IN DESK

VERIFY

PRE-AUTH CARD

SIGN ROOM ID

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

ROOM KEY

DIRECTION / INFO

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

HILTON CONCEPT PROCESS 01

INSERT PAYMENT CARD

OPTIONS

ISSUE KEY

DIRECTION / INFO

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.

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.

The “landside” zone in an airport has to manage thousands of people queuing for check-in. It is complex in terms of wayfinding, and how different areas relate to different flights. If the check-in process was minimal, the terminal could look very different.

NEXT > The Supermarket Check Out

11 Process The Airport Check In Process

THE STEREOTYPICAL AIRPORT CHECK-IN PROCESS 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 checkin 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.

CHECK-IN DESK QUEUE

IDENTIFY

WEIGH BAGGAGE

ISSUE BOARDING PASS

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

SECURITY QUEUE

SHOW BOARDING PASS

SECURITY CHECK

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.

QANTAS CONCEPT PROCESS 01

CHECK IN CARD SCAN

SELF BAGGAGE DROP OFF

SECURITY QUEUE

SCAN CARD

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

SECURITY CHECK

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.

The supermarket checkout still persists despite two attempts to eliminate it: scan as you shop, and self service kiosks. It is highly ineďŹ&#x192;cient and a significant pain point in the shopping experience. Eliminating it would create significantly more space in supermarkets.

NEXT > The Bank Self Deposit Process

13 Process The Supermarket Check Out Process

THE STEREOTYPICAL SUPERMARKET CHECK-OUT PROCESS 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.

UNLOAD TROLLEY

QUEUE

STAFF SCANS

BAG AND REPACK

There is almost nothing about the traditional checkout 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,

PAY

TAKE RECEIPT

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.

IBM CONCEPT PROCESS 01

FULL TROLLEY SCAN

AUTO PAYMENT

TAKE RECEIPT

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.

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.

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.

NEXT > About Us

15 Process The Bank Self Deposit Process THE STEREOTYPICAL SELF DEPOSIT PROCESS 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.

EXPRIES: CARD NO:

CONTACT NO:

TAKE SLIP & ENVELOPE

FILL OUT DETAILS

FILL ENVELOPE

POST ENVELOPE

FILL OUT CONTACT DETAILS

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.

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

RBS SELF DEPOSIT PROCESS 01

TAKE ENVELOPE

ENTER CARD

ENTER CASH AMOUNT

GET RECEIPT

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.

FILL ENVELOPE (CASH+RECEIPT)

POST ENVELOPE

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.

NEXT > The End

16 About Us 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:

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.

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.