Alžbeta Ivanovičová

In my article 10 Commandments of Product Discovery, I wrote about the foundation of creating good products and services being a creative process called Product Discovery. This process aims to deliver a functional product to users in the shortest time possible, with the greatest certainty that the product team will achieve the originally intended goal and that the solution will be technically feasible.

I mentioned Discovery Backlog, which is a conceptual repository of ideas, opportunities, and issues ready for the product team to validate – meaning to assess which ones are relevant and should be included in the product roadmap. So, how does one go about building such a repository of ideas?


How to fill Discovery Backlog

Idea generation techniques are divided into quantitative and qualitative based on the type of data they rely on, and into generative and evaluative. Generative techniques help us find new ideas, while evaluative techniques help us assess the current situation.

Let's illustrate this with an example. I have an ecommerce store with the goal of increasing the shopping cart conversion by 1 %. I choose techniques from the four quadrants based on what I want to discover. The best results come from combining techniques from all four quadrants. Techniques from each quadrant can provide the following types of information:

Quantitative – Generative techniques:

 * I can ask all customers who place an order for feedback and thus obtain the CES (Customer Effort Score) of the purchasing process, that is, how difficult it was for them to complete the task. For example, I will ask: "How difficult was it for you to place the order?"
 * How to do it: Survey integrated on the thank you page after the order

Qualitative – Generative techniques:

 * As a customer leaves during any step of the purchasing process, I ask them through the Hotjar tool what they would improve.
 * How to do it: Hotjar survey triggered when a customer leaves the page

Quantitative – Evaluative techniques:

 * For the customers who completed an order and those who did not, I compare the conversion rates of individual steps in the purchasing process. I identify where most customers drop or where the greatest potential to increase shopping cart conversion is hidden.
 * How to do it: Data analysis based on data from Google Analytics

Qualitative – Evaluative techniques:

 * I conduct a usability test of the purchasing process.
 * How to do it: Usability testing of the website


Techniques for seeking ideas


Surveys

A survey is a quantitative technique primarily categorized as generative, but it can also be used to evaluate the current state. The advantage of a survey is that it allows you to gather a larger amount of data in a relatively short time.


Desk research

During desk research, you delve into your own knowledge base or public sources (internet, libraries, archives…). It provides you with both quantitative and qualitative data. Beware, don’t use desk research as a substitution for research with your own customers.

Get ideas from relevant and trusted sources only. Also, consider their timeliness as customer behavior can change over time. Interesting sources of information include archives in the field of social and behavioral sciences or open databases of scientific articles from social science journals published in countries of Eastern Europe.


Individual or group interviews

There is nothing more important than interviews with real customers. These can be conducted either individually (problem interviews) or in groups (focus groups). Before starting the actual qualitative interview, always make sure that you are talking to your real target customers through screening questions.

In interviews, try to capture stories. Don't hesitate to ask "Why?" to uncover respondents' real needs. In group interviews, use an experienced facilitator who can address the risks of groupthink and dominant participants. Our User Interview Cheatsheet will help you ask the right questions the right way.


Competitive analysis

Competitive analysis is a qualitative generative technique that helps you understand how other organizations solve a particular problem. It also helps you discover what can be done better, to gain a competitive advantage.


Data analysis

Analytical work with data is a quantitative evaluative technique. The conclusion of each data analysis should be the interpretation of the outputs, ideally with recommendations. The biggest challenge of data analysis is that either companies don't have such data or it's challenging for the product team to obtain it. However, it can provide very useful insights and even show that some ideas are not worth pursuing because there is no real customer problem or no opportunity arises from them.

If you don't have user and customer behavior data, map out two to three most important customer journeys, identify the key metrics, and implement your findings. The conclusion of each data analysis should include interpreting the outputs with any recommendations. Google Analytics can be a good starting point for websites and applications. To understand more advanced product analytics, I recommend reading the Lean Analytics book.


Usability testing

Usability tests are an evaluative qualitative method where you observe customers using the product. It evaluates the user's ability to complete the assigned task or the degree of difficulty and frustration experienced while doing so. In summative testing, you only need to observe six users to identify 80 % of serious usability flaws.


From collecting to exploring ideas

By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, the product team gathers a lot of ideas that can be validated during Product Discovery. Simply describe them briefly and add them to the Discovery Backlog. At Lighting Beetle*, we use the Idea Validation canvas. In the industry, you might also encounter terms like Business Problem Statement or Opportunity Canvas.

Discovery Backlog: How to seek opportunities for better customer experience

Samuel Švec

Minimum Viable Podcast #24: From designer to investor

Walter Lima

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Once a company brings customers to their service design process, the first thing they usually do is user testing. Running a usability study is quite effective in bringing stakeholders awareness to moments of frustration that their customers experience. However, user testings have limitations that many designers and managers overlook. They show us how customers might use a service, but very often they fail in telling us whether the customer would want to use the service at all.


How to test for desirability



The approach to determine the demand for your service among customers should be tailored to your current stage in the design process. Below are some tips you can start incorporating to assess desirability.

1. Examine desirability during usability testing

To begin, enhance your user testing process by incorporating desirability questions to the interview. This ensures that participants are not only focused on usability but also on evaluating whether your service addresses their problems, potentially motivating them to pay for it.

At the end of the session, ask the participant how helpful the solution is at solving their problem. Keep in mind it's crucial to carefully select participants who genuinely face the problem you aim to solve.

In a recent project focused on developing a portal to assist social workers in aiding vulnerable individuals, we engaged social workers closely involved with those in need for usability testing. When prompted, many of them eagerly expressed how the solution would significantly benefit their work.

2. Test early concepts, with a focus on problem-solution fit

The depth of feedback you receive correlates directly with the level of detail in your prototypes. In the initial phases, it's important to focus on testing broad concepts to see if your solution addresses an existing problem before assessing usability.

During this phase, it's essential to have well-defined problem statements and to target your riskiest assumptions, ensuring that the testing audience aligns with the problem you aim to solve; employ early-stage concepts to initiate discussions and confirm the existence of these problems while gathering insights on potential solutions. Be prepared to test multiple solutions and avoid attaching to one idea.

Tip: While qualitative insights are valuable, sometimes a blend of qualitative and quantitative data to validate the viability of an idea is beneficial. To add quantitative rigor, you can conduct surveys using established methods like jobs-to-be-done and KANO to quantify desirability in this phase.

We recently partnered with a mountaineering gear importer that directly sells products to consumers while also supplying retailers. To enhance the retail experience within the provider's system, we initiated qualitative interviews to delve into their challenges and introduced our own ideas for discussion.

Subsequently, we conducted a comprehensive quantitative survey to validate the alignment of our proposed solutions with the identified problems across a broad spectrum of retailers.

3. Launch quickly, iterate quicker

A common misconception is that success is conditioned by having a perfect product at launch. However, in reality, success lies in the capability of swiftly embracing and incorporating customer feedback and iterating your product.

While the technical development of your service may require time, gathering realistic customer insights need not wait. Moreover, adopting lean experiments offers a balanced approach. To help pick the right experiment, check our Experiment toolbox.

For instance, a landing page can effectively convey your value proposition, gauge interest, and begin cultivating a customer base without the need for a fully-developed service. You can even offer customers to subscribe to a waiting list or pre-order, prompting them to assess the service's value.

Just release

Ultimately, the most potent feedback regarding the customer’s willingness to pay for your service emerges when you launch it.

What truly sets apart CX mature companies is their adeptness in working with customer data and their recognition that shipping represents merely the initial step in a longer journey towards success.

Once you have proven your solution solves a problem, it's time to start adding new features. To help you find out which features to add first, we have published an Assumption Mapper canvas, that you can use to prioritize features based on their riskiness.


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Desirability: Why usability testing ≠ good product

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You need a good argument to make the case for customer experience improvement initiatives. One of them is ROI, or return on customer experience investments. We'll show you how to connect CX metrics with business ones.


Definition of customer experience

In order to consciously influence or improve the customer experience, we first need to understand what creates the experience.The Customer Journey Map and the Service Blueprint are the best ways to visualise the customer experience. Both help us understand what activities customers perform and what interactions they have with our organization over time. Besides interactions, the channels where these interactions happen are also very important. In fact, many customer journeys today are multi-channel – we also call them omnichannel – and consistency of experience across them forms a significant part of the overall customer experience.

An example of a customer journey could be a visit to the cinema. Imagine you want to see a new Pedro Almodóvar film. First, you check the website of a nearby cinema on your smartphone. When you find out when the movie is playing, as part of your afternoon email-clearing block, you buy a ticket on the web on your computer. You're glad the cinema has PDF tickets because you care about the environment and besides, you don't have a printer at home. You download the ticket to your smartphone. You arrive at the cinema where you are greeted nicely by the usher. You show them the PDF, from which they scan the QR code, and you go find your seat.

It is clear from the example that the complexity of the customer experience also increases with the device from which the channel is accessed – for the cinema website it was once from a mobile phone and later from a computer.


Metrics related to CX

Since we already know that customer experience is created through touchpoints and channels, let's take a look at metrics related to customer experience.

At Lighting Beetle*, we work with a mental model we call the Performance Pyramid. It is a hierarchy of performance measurement in organizations. In order to measure customer experience, organizations should know their operational and financial metrics. They should also work with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) as a tool to evaluate their benchmark.

An example of a metric might be daily cinema attendance and an example of a KPI, an indicator that the cinema is performing as expected, would be average daily cinema attendance on weekend days, which is at a minimum of 2000 visitors.

As part of measuring customer experience, we work with:

 * CX metrics such as Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Effort Score (CES)
 * Business metrics such as Churn Rate, Retention Rate, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), number of orders, number of customer service responses, etc.

As an illustration, after leaving the movie theater, a visitor can leave feedback on how satisfied they were with the overall quality of service, which will arrive via email. In addition, we know how loyal this customer is, or we know how many cinema tickets they have historically purchased.


Return on CX can be measured

The moment an organization works with both CX and business metrics, it is possible to measure the return on investment in improving the customer experience. The process is as follows:

1. Choose the CX metric you want to improve

2. Choose a business (operational or financial) metric

3. Divide customers into groups based on their experience level

4. Determine the average business metric for each group

5. Calculate the value of improving your CX metrics*

6. Calculate the cost or investment invested in CX cultivation

7. Compare the benefit and ROI (Return On Investment)

*No. 5 is about quantifying the monetary benefit if your lower-rated customers have moved to a higher-rated group.

“An increase in CX metric will result in a change in core operational business metric, which will drive an increase in revenue or a reduction in costs, for an investment of expense of CX program.” (Source)


Let's look at the example of a cinema:



1. I will choose customer satisfaction score (CSAT) as the CX i.e. customer metric.

2. As a business metric, I will choose the number of cinema tickets sold per customer per year.

3. I will create a segmentation of customers according to their CSAT level. To simplify this for the sake of example, let's assume a customer base of 100 000 customers per year and divide them into 3 groups:

 * Dissatisfied – 25 % of customers i.e. 25 000 customers
 * Neutral – 35 % of customers i.e. 35 000 customers
 * Satisfied – 40 % of customers i.e. 40 000 customers

4. I'll look at ø business metric for each group. For simplicity, let's assume a flat ticket price of 8 €, but ideally we should calculate with real sales:

 * Unsatisfied – buy in ø 2 tickets per year = 16 € i.e. 400 000 €
 * Neutrals – buy 3 tickets per year = 24 € i.e. 840 000 €
 * Satisfied – will buy 6 tickets per year = 48 € i.e. 1 920 000 €
 * Total: 3 160 000 €

5. I will estimate the value of improving CX metrics, i.e. how much the business metric will change if I improve the experience for some part of the customer base. In our case, this might mean, for example, that if I convert 10% of neutral customers to satisfied customers, their ratios and purchases will look like this:

 * Unsatisfied – 25 % of customers i.e. 400 000 €
 * Neutral – 25 % of customers i.e. 600 000 €
 * Satisfied – 50 % of customers i.e. 2 400 000 €
 * Total: 3 400 000 €

6. Thus, improving CX can bring me an increase in revenue of 240 000 € after the first year, which is an increase of +7.59 %. If the profitability of the cinema is, for example, 15 %, it would be in profit of 474 000 € before the CX improvement. However, after the CX initiative, the profit would rise to 510 000 €, which is 36 000 € more.

7. From this example, I can then derive the potential amount of investment, which could be at 36 000–72 000 € in the first year if we want to hit the ROI level of 50–100 %.


ROX is the new CX ROI

There are various business and CX metrics and all departments or teams in an organisation should have them defined – not just those in direct contact with the customer. This allows us, CX specialists and service designers, to look for the intersection between operational or financial metrics and find the customer-related ones. We know from experience that finding the right customer-facing metrics is not easy. We talked about how to link business and CX metrics in practice in the episode of our Minimum Viable Podcast with Eva Šípková, Head of CX at Alza. You can listen to it in the Slovak language or read the English translation.

So if you're concerned about any of our business metrics, I'd love to hear from you. We'll be sure to find a way to help it through improving the customer experience. By the way, don't be surprised if you encounter the acronym ROX instead of "Customer Experience Return On Investment" – expert circles are replacing the term ROI with Return On Experience (ROX).


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CX and Metrics: How to measure the ROI of a good customer experience

Logistics is a complex discipline with many variables. Building a good customer experience within it is therefore even more challenging. However, Packeta proves that it's possible. Each year they rank in the TOP 10 of CX ranking compiled by KPMG.

In the 23rd episode, Michal Blažej speaks with Alexander Jančo, Managing Director of Packeta Slovakia. They discuss how Packeta came into existence, how they build customer experience across thousands of pickup points, and where they see the future of the delivery industry.

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more English content, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

The first question is, what sets Packeta apart from the competition?

I think we have a team that can execute our strategy well. Also within the logistics segment, we are most focused on the customer. We look at the customer differently and we ask them how they would imagine these services, and what is comfortable for them.

You mentioned that you have a good team that can execute the strategy well. Could you give an example of something in the past that you accomplished? A strategic goal that made you exceptional on the market?

That's about two years ago when we grew acquisition-wise in the delivery to address product. Then we decided to acquire the company Remax Courier Service. I am very data-oriented as well as our company. We adhere to the idea that a person without data is just a person with an opinion.

So before, I did research, where I found out what people want and what they need and what bothers them about delivery to the address. Everyone was bothered by not seeing the exact delivery time. So with colleagues, we formed a team and I got into it and I said let's deliver at an exact time.

And we succeeded. Of course, it has a standard curve that happens with changes. Some people doubted it. We had to replace some couriers who refused to be under such scrutiny because it means that the courier doesn't plan his day according to themself, but the software creates a route for them. They choose some segments of breaks they need but they must stick to it precisely.

That sounds like a success story. So you are a Czech-Slovak company. I'm not entirely clear about the structure. Could you just tell me how you are divided?

I would start by saying that our founder Simona Kijonková is a very good boss who gives freedom to individual Managing Directors in each country. She says she hires us as experts in that specific market and we have to say what we need. According to that, we proceed either globally together, or we will only make local changes.

In this case, when we were preparing delivery to the address, we had an advantage because, with that acquisition, we were also buying a system for that service. And I am for one team, so it wasn't necessary to deal with it as a group. All other services run on a common system.

Packeta has many pick-up points, which are also stores of various kinds. How did you come up with this idea?

Let's go back to 2010 when Simona Kijonková founded Packeta, her husband Jaromír Kijonka was already doing business on the internet and selling sunglasses, prescription glasses, and contact lenses. He and many other Czech e-shop owners expanded to Slovakia as their second country. So they were looking for a cheap alternative to solve transportation from the Czech Republic to Slovakia.

And the system of pick-up points that Simona saw abroad was cheaper. That's why the idea of pick-up points was born.

What are all the components your customer experience consists of?

When I start with logistics, it has a lot of KPIs. The most important thing is how many shipments we deliver the next day. And then some parcel parameters. For example, we monitor individual couriers on how efficiently they function during the day. We also monitor partner pick-up points, how efficient they are.

So we monitor efficiency, process, and quality, and this happens daily. This also happens at our Z boxes. We have many qualitative parameters that our team monitors daily and this is transferred to the reward system and to the individual departments and people.

So you have KPIs tied to rewards, and that is the motivational factor you have?

Yes. And when it comes to customer care, we also check how many of the daily number of customers we serve called us and for what reason. Then the input is from our partners and then some quantitative surveys we do within a certain periodicity at least once per quarter. There we go from brand awareness, through NPS to daily satisfaction measurements by recipients.

Instant feedback is very important for us because it's the instant feedback that can move the company the fastest.

KPIs are my favourite topic. Who manages the KPIs initiative at your company?

We have a group perspective and then an individual entity perspective. But as a Managing Director, I put together the whole pyramid and KPIs. Of course, I have some expectations, inputs from the group.

That's a great point. We've talked here with Eva Šípková from Alza about how they set up KPIs, and I like it when the Managing Director owns this initiative and understands it because that sets the quality. What if the KPIs are not met?

We have a separate department that deals with processes and quality management of important KPIs. There is no long-term problem. A short-term problem may arise, such as increased illness in a given region or bad weather.

But these are just daily nuances. Long-term nuances don't happen. If someone doesn't meet the KPI at the level of quality we have, then they are not good enough to be in that position.

When I choose a package on an e-shop, what happens and what impact do the individual elements have on the customer?

Sometimes companies try to come up with a lot for the customer, and then it affects the price. In the case of our business, it is very important to know what to give to the client and at what price so that we achieve the market share we expect.

In the context of the two services we offer on the Slovak market from the recipient's point of view, there is either delivery to pick-up points or to boxes and delivery by courier to the address.

Sometimes companies try to come up with a lot for the customer, and then it affects the price.

In both cases, we offer the customer to choose the service using a widget our partners have implemented. You have all the information there and you can quickly choose the delivery point. We need to give the customer simplicity of choice right in the cart.

In the case of delivery to the address, we tried to solve the fact that most of the clients have to enter the delivery address, and some e-shop verifies it and some don't. When you enter the wrong address, the shipment will be delayed because we have to call you. There are costs associated with that.

We don't want to have extra costs, and we don't want to have an angry customer so we have to do many things as simple as possible. We made a widget where you select the point you want to deliver the shipment to, and you don't have to fill in anything, and the address is correct.

Here is one usability problem that often occurs. I choose a point on the map, but I don't trust that the mapping software finds it correctly. Do you test these widgets?

Sure, we test everything. Our colleagues in the Czech Republic do it. Either we do it to some extent in-house, or we call a partner to do it.

Yesterday I was shopping, I had it delivered through you, but there was no widget, so it probably depends on which e-shop decides how.

We still try to educate and talk about what is important. To some extent, it is sad that CX is underestimated in many e-shops. Often in the past, it happened that the e-shop didn't care which carrier they put in the basket, it was all about the price.

I'm glad that when those companies have CX departments, it's a different communication right from the start because they already ask about the NPS and so on. So the choice of a suitable partner is not just about the price, but also about quality. I am very pleased that we have been holding the first position in NPS in the market in the long term. Within KPMG, every year when they map 100 brands in terms of customer experience within Slovakia, we still rank in the TOP 10.

Do you compare these NPS with each other? Is it an open debate between DPD, Packeta, or other delivery companies? I'm curious because NPS for other agencies is difficult to find out.

We don't have this data from competitors. We pay for these surveys, and it costs a lot of money, but I assume that they do the same.

Again, we are going back to the cart. We selected the address via the widget, what else affects the customer experience?

The customer experience is subsequently influenced by the fact that the customer expects it to be delivered, in our case, the next day. When it comes to the pick-up point, they want to have an experience where they don't wait in a line, where it goes quickly, and where there is pleasant service. In the case of Z boxes, it's easier because the box doesn't talk, it can't mess anything up.

In the case of delivery to the address, the customer expects accuracy, so when we send it in the morning, if we say you'll have the package by 9:30, we usually hit that time frame. Until recently, couriers used terminals if you decided to pay by card. Sometimes it was out of battery, so they'd tell you that card payment wasn't possible.

With the Android devices they use for delivery, there's a barcode reader and NFC, so you just need to tap the card or phone, all within one device. Therefore, it can't happen that you can't pay by card with our courier. If for example, the provider has an outage, we offer an alternative solution - payment through our app.

With the boxes, do you always have to negotiate with each parcel owner and then pay them, or how does it work?

We've automated that already. We have two models. In each model, we pay some money. But I'm grateful for the help from ZMOS. When we started, we mainly went to villages. We know where lower-income people are, and it's a service that's usually 30% cheaper.

In the beginning, we had this strategy, and I'm glad that ZMOS helped us negotiate with municipalities when we pay a symbolic euro in some places. The truth is, in some villages, the box isn't as busy, and from our side, it's a considerable investment.

The second question I wanted to ask is that Alza boxes need to be connected to electricity, right?

Yes, they have a screen and each one is connected to electricity. Alza has about 600 units, we currently have around 1700. This year we plan to build 250 new and enlarge another 250.

Couriers are one customer-facing element, and then there are the pick-up points. How do you train those people?

Starting with partner pick-up points, we have a big checklist of how not only the partner's operation should look but also communication, and so on. So we already have some demands for those spaces, opening hours, to be open at least five days a week, etc.

I'm glad that up to 80% of partners are also open on Saturdays. From the data we have and compare, we have the highest quality network. As for how we train them, we track those KPIs I mentioned. So how quickly they accept shipments, when the courier brings them, how quickly they issue them, up to the email feedback we send after each issued shipment via the pick-up point.

And we have a point system, three strikes and you're out. I'm very proud that 98% of our partners meet these qualitative parameters, and currently, we have over 1200 partners. The reward is progressive based on meeting those qualitative parameters.

But that reward is for me something I would like them to pay us in the future. Because when you look at it from the other segment's perspective like Google or Meta, you pay them to bring people to your site, and they don't even guarantee that people will buy from you, so we bring that traffic there.

But that reward is for me something I would like them to pay us in the future.

It was very important to teach them to look at that customer who comes to the pick-up point as their average margin. We taught this one man who sells fishing supplies and mothers with children would come there for packages. I told him that even mothers with children buy for example repellents. Or they have men in their surroundings for whom they can buy gifts.

That was new information for him, which suddenly opened new horizons for him. That: “aha, I don't have to sell only to those fishermen who come here, but I can see the opportunity in everyone.” And then that person who comes to the pick-up point suddenly doesn't earn those few cents for issuing a package but earns because he sells his goods.

It's interesting how you transform the market of small retail. The world has changed, and with Lidl around every corner, those small convenience stores have to think differently.

I look at it in the context that, for example, colleagues who are responsible for partner sites and boxes are retail experts. Merchants who are in charge of our online stores are experts in e-commerce and expansion.

So in this context, this is how we operate, and nobody sells anything. Everyone just tells you how they could help you. That's very important in the way the company works, how it achieves those results, and then what impact it has on the customer experience.

I think you said it well, that the customer experience often doesn't stem from a well-laid-out process but from that value exchange that happens. Let's quickly talk about the couriers, and then we can talk about the future.

It's standard there that during onboarding, the courier is trained in the process and then they are regularly retrained. They also communicate daily with their partner who is at the depot and go over the daily results.

And of course, then we have trainer colleagues who show newbies or those who don't have good quality how to do it. And these are things we do daily. For some illustration, we deliver 10,000 shipments, but during a seasonal peak, it's several hundred thousand shipments per day.

Do couriers also have KPIs tied to the reward system?

Exactly, and there's also the modus operandi that if you don't meet the quality three times, you're out.

Let's talk about the future now. What new experiences will customers have, and how do you want to compete in the market? How do you want to be better than the competition?

Still keeping the customer first and, like Amazon has that encoded in their DNA, be customer obsessed. Because customer orientation is something that everyone claims, but that's very weak for me.

The company must have it encoded in its culture that we are obsessed with the customer, that we conduct surveys, collect feedback, and constantly monitor it, looking also into the future and in the context of competition, and so on.

We will also focus on our app, which is already used by about a million people in Slovakia today. Through it, anyone can send a package across four markets: Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania. We want to expand so this is possible in 33 countries, as we enable it for e-commerce today.

I see that the convenience of delivery is moving to extreme levels. I read recently that Walmart has a white-glove service, where they will place eggs in your fridge, for example. How do you see the future of delivery, where else will the market move in some medium-term horizon?

Another solution is to have a mailbox not just for letters, but for packages. And in general, it will be open so that when your neighbor calls you and says: “Hey, Michal, I made jam, and you're not home. Can you open your mailbox? I'll throw it in there, and then you can pick it up.”

There's talk, for example, that Samsung should also bring their own software to their appliances, so that when you run out of sth, the system will automatically place an order, and the goods will arrive. But this will firstly work in big cities, not in Bratislava. Even Rohlík hasn't come to Bratislava yet, because Bratislava is small, and a certain size is necessary for the service to be worthwhile from the provider's point of view.

But if I go to such fundamentals, certainly, it's the pick-up points and boxes, but mainly boxes, because they are 24/7. There will definitely be more and more boxes because there are about 12 points - pick-up points or boxes per 10 thousand inhabitants in Slovakia, not just ours. In Poland, it's 40.

Do you have a benchmark for how far it can grow?

The foundation of box delivery is simple. You can deliver many shipments to one address and don't have to call anyone like with the address delivery. If that network grows to such dimensions that the box will be everywhere, you won't even need to order something by courier. So I think delivery to the address will be a premium product and it will be the other way around that not the courier tells me they'll come at 9:30, but I tell them to come at 9:30.

Last question I ask every guest. What is your biggest design challenge you would like to solve?

My dream and desire is that every e-shop has the same checkout process. Even when I go to the smaller e-shop, I know that the checkout there will be ensured by a brand I know and trust. To some extent, the inspiration for me is Apple. Within the Apple account, I have the delivery address filled out, and when I shop, I pay through Apple's payment gateway, and at the same time, Apple knows my address.

Great. I heard that Shopsys tried such proprietary software, that they only do checkouts, and last week I sat with Jan Cifra from Dedoles, and he told me that all checkouts will look the same for it. That it's not possible, that today all checkouts are diverse...


Listen to the whole interview with Alexander Jančo in Slovak:

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

Design is all around us. Minimum Viable Podcast explores design with a small “d” – the one that looks for solutions to people's problems. In it, together with our guests, we address topics that are related to design, but we normally do not associate with it. Thanks to the Zeldeo production studio and our production manager Mojmír Procházka for the cooperation.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #23: CX in logistics

Minimum Viable Podcast #22: Future Thinking

Kamil Zahorjan

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In recent years, car manufacturers have become increasingly focused on delivering a digital experience to drivers through various digital products. Although infotainment (a dashboard multimedia touchscreen) as one of them has been around for some time, it is still in the phase of exploring and understanding the benefits it can bring to passengers.

Working with Škoda Auto for past years, we’ve witnessed the industry's shift towards a more digitized customer experience. Tons of iterations on infotainment products and collaboration with experts on in-car design helped us summarize these most influential factors to keep in mind when designing human-machine interfaces.


1. Safety all the way

The most influential factor for designing HMI is the environment. For cars, the primary interaction will always be driving and we must keep this in mind. Unlike other digital products where the goal is to keep users engaged, drivers’ focus must remain on the road to ensure safety. It might be similar for, let’s say, medical devices for surgeons.

To ensure the safety of the infotainment, first, we minimize the content and interaction elements as much as possible to reduce cognitive load and to increase focus on driving. There’s even policies, e.g. the law defines the maximum text length that can be displayed while driving. If content cannot be minimized, we implement driving distraction restrictions, such as simple pop-ups that prohibit viewing some content while driving.


2. Diverse range of languages

If you are aiming for an HMI design that is universal worldwide, keep in mind requirements of verbose languages. Good practice is to check the text length for each intended language even before you create the actual interface.

Škoda distributes cars to over 100 countries worldwide, so it is crucial to ensure that the designs can be easily translated and adapted to different languages. We achieve this by testing the copy in multiple languages and defining maximum text field lengths to avoid overflowing texts. In some cases, it’s inevitable to iterate a whole component to fit desired content.


3. Frequent testing

Even when following all best practices and design standards, we can never be entirely sure that our design will work without causing distractions while driving. Therefore, we conduct thorough testing with users, simulating the car environment as closely as possible.

In a recent testing conducted by the Škoda HMI team, drivers were asked to ride a simulated road while conducting a simple task on the infotainment screen. Such testing indicated an optimal position for various elements and a correct size for safe accessibility while driving.

Testing is an essential part of a design process and even if you don’t have a dedicated budget, improvise with lean and guerrilla tests. For example, when we were testing the calendar app, we mounted a tablet to a car dashboard. Other times we simulate the environment in our office.


4. Mapping design patterns

Škoda cars are used by a wide range of drivers and passengers, spanning different ages, countries, and cultures. It is important to design interfaces that are easily understood by all users. By following common design patterns and conducting frequent user testing, we make our designs accessible to a wide range of customers.

For example, while designing the parking app, we looked at how they are set up in different countries across Europe, so that our design would be universal. Seek for patterns your customer segment is accustomed to, and don’t forget to check for technical limitations, as well.


5. Seamless journey across touchpoints

To ensure a cohesive customer experience, we cannot work in a vacuum. Infotainment is just one part of the digital experience provided by any car manufacturer. If we are considering a certain design change, we must take into account all dependencies it causes on other touchpoints and streams.

The Pay to Park service, which allows a user to pay for parking based on the car position, is a good example. Besides infotainment, the feature is also accessible from MyŠkoda App, designed by a different team. While working on the app, we needed to meet with the mobile design team regularly to make sure we are delivering as close an experience between these two touch points as possible. If we want to keep the design user-friendly, it needs to be consistent.


Where do the roads of car infotainment lead to?

Compared to digital products, the slower pace of product delivery in the car industry has historically resulted in technical debt in many cars. As a result, relatively new cars might have interfaces that appear outdated. This delay can make it challenging for car manufacturers to compete with mobile apps providing similar functions or with mirroring services like CarPlay or Android Auto.

On the other hand, it creates huge potential. With the car becoming more of a living organism, we can expect them to be more about software and less about hardware. And infotainment will be a big part of the puzzle. For more visions of the future of the automotive industry, I recommend the episode of our Minimum Viable Podcast with Ondrej Homola, the Lead UX Designer at Volvo. You can listen to it in the Slovak language or read the English translation.


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What designing for Škoda infotainment taught us about HMI

"Even a bank can be loved." That's the slogan of the brand we'll be discussing in this podcast. Customer experience is what sets Air Bank apart from the competition. It's no coincidence that according to KPMG's ranking, Air Bank is in the top position, and this is reflected in the growing number of customers.

In the 21st episode of MVP, Michal Blažej talks to Peter Šmíd, the Head of Market Research, about how the research team functions at Air Bank, what metrics they use to measure CX, and why the devil is in the details of qualitative surveys.

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more English content, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

We chose Air Bank because, among financial institutions in the Czech Republic, you are virtually a love brand. I'd like to ask how you perceive the customer in practice and how it functions internally. And perhaps, Petr, what makes Air Bank different from your previous experiences?

Internal functioning is crucial because here when you need something, some help, to push a project, you don't feel any resistance. Colleagues always try to accommodate you. They know that when you come up with something, you definitely didn't make it up for your own pleasure, but it makes sense, there's a procedure behind it, and it will be good for the clients.

It's also very open here. We have flexible office space, and anyone can sit where they want. This means that even the CEO can sit at your desk, and it's normal. Every month we have regular meetings for all employees, explaining what's happening, why it's happening, and what will happen next, which then prevents any doubts.

You work in a Research Team, and I'm interested in your organizational placement and how you interact with other departments.

We are quite independent and, in those four years, a rather wandering unit. Originally, we were under marketing, then we moved under CRM, and we even considered being under the product team, but we realized it doesn't really matter where we are because we have to operate independently.

Currently, we're under CRM, and it has significant advantages because we have access to resources and client contacts. CRM communicates directly with clients, so when we want to reach out to clients with some research, we are right at the source, and it's the smoothest process from creating a questionnaire to delivering it. But as I said, it's essentially the same because we serve the entire bank.

How large is the Research Team?

There are three of us, and we handle quite a significant amount of projects. I just looked at the statistics for October, and we've already completed around 180 projects. So, by the end of the year, we'll certainly complete 200 projects, all of which go through that process.

First, you talk to someone about what's needed. Then you look for a quick solution, and you have to process and evaluate it well. So these are not one-time, quick tasks; we somehow have to manage all of this as a team. Additionally, some of these projects, around 5 to 10, are larger and long-term ones.

How did you manage to make the customer perspective mean anything at all? And what are the specific types of activities you perform? Research can go in various directions. What are you actually working on?

When I started, there wasn't so much research happening. However, after some time, when you show that the information you bring truly accelerates decision-making, improves a process, enhances a product, and is genuinely beneficial, it quickly spreads from one team to another.

Now, we've reached a capacity limit where we're starting to think about prioritization because there are so many requests piling up, and the three of us are getting overwhelmed. But when you explain that this project will be done next month and you have good reasons for it, it's perfectly fine. It's about communication.

As for the scope, we cover all research fields. From satisfaction surveys to employee research, and product development, which means we're involved in all stages of product development. From testing of initial concepts to final testing. We're also in traditional marketing research, which means we conduct ad tests and communication tests.

"We prepare the scenario and conduct the entire interview ourselves. This has added value because we can involve colleagues who are relevant to the topic."

Now we're looking at how it works at the branches. We conduct customer journey mapping across various products, feedback, image research, branding research, and UX research. But, of course, not everyone does everything. My colleague Tereza mainly handles UX research and testing. My colleague Honza is responsible for various innovation directions, and monitors the market, what the competition is doing, and what the world is doing. My area is more focused on satisfaction research, feedback, branding research, and PR research.

How is it possible that you manage to handle such a workload?

We've cut out everything unnecessary. For example, we don't create presentations, we only write summaries of what we found and recommend, which saves hours of work. There are, of course, projects that require presentations, but those are minimal.

We also do most activities ourselves, which may seem like more work, but it's the opposite. Collaboration with an agency often significantly prolongs the entire research process. We can create questionnaires ourselves, and collect and analyze the data ourselves. This brings us from hours to days within the assignment and the final result.

We often use guerrilla methodologies in research, where we involve the customer in the project within hours. But when there's a two-week research project, that becomes quite a significant blocker. How do you handle this?

For qualitative research, recruiting respondents is really the most challenging part. We leave that to agencies we've vetted. Then, we prepare the scenarios and conduct the entire interview ourselves. This has added value because we can involve colleagues who are directly related to the topic. If it's about loans, we invite colleagues who are responsible for loans because they are experts in that area.

This really builds trust in the research. From my experience, whenever we show someone a presentation or maybe even a recording, it never has the same strong effect as when the person sits right there.

It can also be dangerous because the product manager can form an opinion. They don't know that the previous client said something different, so the final truth from the research must come from us. Also, information don't get lost between the lines. If an agency produced it, no matter how good they are, they're still not experts in banking.

I'm also interested in more specific examples. Could you highlight a successful project where the company benefitted from your research and turned it into specific value for the customer?

I'd probably start with the staggered payment, that we introduced in January as our new product. It's been about two to three years since we started thinking about it. We investigated whether people would even want such a service, and we were surprised that the interest was really high.

Originally it was supposed to be a completely free service, but clients themselves in interviews said it's not entirely right because it's still some sort of a loan, and everyone should think at least a little before spreading their payment. So, a hygiene fee of 50 crowns for the instalment was introduced, which is a one-time payment at the beginning, and then it's interest-free.

"We don't exactly love NPS, but it's a verified metric that works quite well in expressing the relationship with clients."

Although any fees at Air Bank are perceived as a negative thing because we are primarily a fee-free bank, in this case, it's a hygiene factor. Clients understand why it's there, and it's still a very good deal when you can retrospectively split a payment you made a month ago.

It doesn't work exactly like a loan; it's more about managing the cash flow. When you suddenly run out of money at the end of the month, and you can see that last month you paid 10,000 for something, you can get that 10,000 back into your account by just clicking on it. And you only start repaying it from the next month, effectively extending your cash flow for the following months.

So the insight from the customers was that they didn't want it for free, right?

Offering it for free would have led to situations where people would spread even their basic expenses. It's really meant for extraordinary expenses. And the 50 crowns at least make you think about it a bit.

The entire process illustrates your work well. In the background, you do trend hunting, where you see Clarna. You conduct some concept testing and then incorporate it into the development plan. And at all these points, you, as the research team, represent the customer.

My colleague is responsible for trend hunting, and he has developed a method for tracking trends across all industries. We look at what's happening globally and how it's approaching the Czech Republic. When something new comes up in China or the United States, it will be here in a year or two.

Then we show it to the product teams and other people who should focus on it. So they can plan their capacities because there comes a moment when the innovation is so close that you already don't have the time to develop it. Of course, all banks monitor innovations and what's happening, but you must plan your capacities to keep up. For example, when Apple Pay was introduced, there was a race to be the first. Of course, clients are also excited when they are first and can show others how it works.

I'd like to focus a bit more on quick research. You already mentioned the accuracy and credibility of your results. How do you evaluate at such speed whether something might need more time? And how are you sure when it's sufficient?

This, of course, varies from case to case. We have relatively frequent meetings with other teams to know what they are planning. We spread awareness about how long things take. You can't create a customer journey in a week, and you can't complete significant product development in 14 days. We plan it together with the product team to be synced.

We've managed to set up communication so that whenever something starts in product development, marketing, or communication, we are there at the beginning so that we can assess whether it's even necessary to conduct research. If you have better, existing data, it's good to know about it at the beginning, so that you don't do the same work unnecessarily.

"NPS is still just a number; the main work lies in the comments people write to us"

Then we identify the questions that need to be answered, and there's no other way to answer them than by conducting research. We spend the most time on preparation. Once the research is well set up, you can finish it relatively quickly. It's been really useful to have detailed discussions with product teams and communication to clarify what the actual goal is and how the research will be used.

Previously, the requests used to come as: "We need to find out how much people like this product." And we researched how much people liked the product. But the actual goal was how it sells, which is a slightly different question. So, we dedicate most of our time to the initial phase, where we clarify what the research should actually achieve. In the end, no one examines which method we use or how we process it because we know that what we do, we do well, quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.

There is quite a lot of pressure on us because when we conduct research, it is relatively quickly implemented. For instance, if we say that about seven percent of people will be interested in a product, but two months later, when it's launched, only one percent is interested, colleagues start asking what was the problem. Whether the target audience was wrong, the research was flawed, or the communication was off. But when you're here, it's assumed that you know how to do your job. What you experienced at the beginning of your career when they were asking you why you asked that question instead of another, that, fortunately, no longer happens here.

So, it requires a fair amount of seniority. When a team of three needs to deliver value quickly, experience must be present. We talked about trends. What are the things that you measure in the long term, and at which you look at through your metrics?

First, there's the conceptual perspective where we look at the past, present, and future. In the past, we focus on feedback. This means that we regularly ask our clients how they rate our services, how satisfied they are with us, and what would they improve.

Then we monitor current things, such as brand tracking, where we track how well we are known to both clients and non-clients and the entire representative population. And, of course, we look into the future at new trends and concept testing.

In terms of metrics, we don't have many. The main and only metric for us is NPS (Net Promoter Score). Not because we love NPS, but because it's a metric we can use to compare with others. It's a verified metric that works well in expressing the relationship with clients.

"We collect feedback from 100,000 people a month."

For Air Bank, it's crucial in client acquisition, how people get to us. Almost everyone asks their acquaintances which bank is good and which one to turn to when they need a new product. Our clients must know that if someone asks them, they can say, "Yes, I'm so satisfied with Air Bank that I'll gladly recommend it without hesitation, and with clear conscience."

When is NPS a relevant metric for you?

It's the only metric we track within the measurement of satisfaction surveys. But it's still just a number. It's nice to have a goal and increase it every year, however, the main work lies in the comments from customers that accompany this number."

We approach about one-twelfth of our client base, which means around 100,000 people monthly, with feedback, and every month, we receive thousands of textual responses and justifications for why a person is so satisfied or dissatisfied. This is the most significant treasure we work with. We genuinely read all the comments and categorize them according to the product and team so that everyone has up-to-date numbers every month, knowing what to improve and correct.

It also helps us to see how these topics evolve over time. Some topics emerge suddenly, grow, and continue to grow until resolved. Then there are long-term topics, and when they are fixed, they gradually disappear from the comments, which is the goal. There are also seasonal topics. So, it's an excellent tool for tracking the mood of our clients. What, and when a particular action suits them, like for example discounted rates for foreign currency payments during vacation season.

Do you really read all those comments manually?

So far, we have processed them manually. I'm not saying we won't use technology in the future, but the added value of enriching ourselves with the context of what clients are saying, and how they're saying it, is significant for us. Perhaps certain models can reveal what clients may want, like more ATMs or branches, but what's missing is how they discuss it, whether they are very upset, and so on. So, the quality is still lacking.

Where do you think research at Air Bank will be in a few years?

Here, we can actually do whatever we want if it makes sense. When you come up with an idea that you want to start researching and implementing, and you know why you want to do it, no one will say no.

Even the feedback on NPS wasn't here, and some people were concerned about how it affects clients when we would contact so many of them every month. Whether it would bother them or not. But it turned out that it works; people are happy to respond, and it makes sense. They even respond happily multiple times because besides we ask them questions, we have to show them that we're doing something with their responses.

Things that need to be addressed are dealt with immediately, so we sometimes call customers back, as it also functions somewhat like a complaint department. Every year, we send them a list of things that have changed based on their feedback. Sometimes it's visible, sometimes less, but something always happens. When clients know this, it motivates them to respond, so we have a significant response rate, and you can see how they elaborate on it.

We also organize various informational and entertaining events for colleagues to spread the knowledge we acquire, and we try to connect everyone. We're trying to find an optimal balance in information delivery so that we don't overwhelm them but, at the same time, reach as many people as possible. We're still looking for it and experimenting with different methods, frequencies, and formats to get the information to people. The path forward is more about spreading this knowledge than seeking for new information.

The last question I ask every guest: What is the biggest design challenge you would like to solve in your life?

It smells a bit like a UX question, but I would aim it more broadly. What bothers me in today's world is how diversity, originality, and uniqueness are getting lost due to efficiency and costs, and everything is becoming more and more similar. So, for me, the challenge is to bring back diversity, originality, and uniqueness to any service. So the client knows why they use Air Bank. That it's a bit different, a bit better, a bit more interesting, and more user-friendly. That would be my wish, for it to be more diverse, and for us to be an example of that diversity.

That's a beautiful challenge in this late capitalist world, where everything is a commodity, and everything is also uniform. Analytical work is directing everything towards universal equality. And for that, we must involve creative work as well.

Research probably contributes to it as well because when it's used poorly, you naturally end up with an average of everything, and everything looks the same. Averaging is hell, so research needs to be used smartly and correctly so that the results contribute to that diversity, and don't flatten everything into one grey box.

Yes, and those extremes can be inspiring.

Exactly, and that's usually where trends begin.


Listen to the whole interview with Petr Šmíd in Slovak:

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

Design is all around us. Minimum Viable Podcast explores design with a small “d” – the one that looks for solutions to people's problems. In it, together with our guests, we address topics that are related to design, but we normally do not associate with it. Thanks to the Zeldeo production studio and our production manager Mojmír Procházka for the cooperation.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #21: CX in banking

In this podcast, we often talk about how to transform an organization to prioritize the customer. However, we rarely have representatives from small to medium-sized companies. In our recent survey on the state of CX in Slovakia, it was confirmed that the size of the company doesn't matter. Everyone can be successful.


In the 20th episode of the Minimum Viable Podcast, Michal Blažej discusses building Customer Experience in small organizations with Lucia Čišková, Managing Director of Business Lease Slovakia.

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more content in English, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

Are you interested in the level of Customer Experience of your organization? Find out in few seconds by answering these 6 questions.

What does Business Lease do?


Business Lease has been providing services for corporate mobility in Slovakia for 25 years. For the past five years, we've also been dealing with mobility for individuals, which includes operational leasing services. Besides that, we offer additional services like short-term rentals under the Biznis Rent brand. We also manage vehicle fleets for clients who don't have their entire fleet under operational leasing but want to use operational leasing services. Additionally, we've expanded into selling used vehicles after operational leasing, which we market under the Cars & Care brand.


How does Business Lease differ from the competition?


We keep the customer at the center of attention. Our vision is to "be the most customer-oriented company in the mobility management segment."


In simple terms, we want to be among the best and most successful companies in Slovakia. To break it down, being the best means being a hero in service quality and then in the approach of our people.


You Are a multinational company. Is the corporate vision defined for the entire group?

Yes. I'm very pleased that this vision came from the top and wasn't just defined locally in Slovakia. In 2018/2019, there was a beautiful alignment and what I wanted to implement in Slovakia was supported by our leadership. Business Lease's main value is care. Operational leasing services are similar everywhere. We need a key differentiator that will propel us forward and we achieve that by our approach to customers. My vision was driven by the desire to make a big leap in finances and satisfaction among both employees and customers. I wanted to double the results, so I started looking for a way to achieve this goal.

Companies often ask themselves how to differentiate, and Customer Experience is one of the possibilities. However, you combined CX with business results, which usually happens later in a company's development. You managed to do it in one step. You mentioned the results. What have you achieved?


In five years, we've managed to increase our fleet by 38%, our profitability from 1.7 to 5.2 million, our NPS score from 41 points to 64, handling complaints decreased from 13 days to 3.7 days, and we moved our Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score from 70 to 86 points.


Regarding the employees, we've rapidly decreased previously high fluctuation, and nowadays we keep it under 5%, which means a stable and content team. In terms of the willingness of our employees to recommend Business Lease as an employer, we've moved from 67 to 76.5.


It's interesting that customer experience is often more about employee satisfaction. You mentioned several internal KPIs and then financial indicators, which is challenging to connect. How do they influence each other?


It's simple. Increasing the quality of services and the approach of employees causes higher customer satisfaction and higher sales. It turns out that 30% of new customers come based on word of mouth and the good name of Business Lease. This allows us to cut marketing expenses.


So the answer is loyalty and satisfaction of existing customers.


With current customers, we measure the so-called repeat rate. This is our ability to renew the vehicle fleet for a given client. We've increased this from 48% to 62%. Of course, we also have customer churn. We measure churn rate on a monthly basis because we know that acquiring a new customer is much more expensive than retaining an existing one and we want to keep this under control.


I assume that you monitor financial indicators every day. How often do you check the other data?


In 2018 we wanted to get the company results under control and we found out we weren't achieving what we wanted. So, we introduced these so-called mid-month meetings where the entire middle management sits and they are trying to find out where we're falling behind while still having two more weeks until the end of the month to deliver the expected results


Regarding the customer experience, it's measured in various ways. It can't always be done on a monthly, or more frequent basis, but we collect feedback continuously.


Likewise, Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) probably can't be measured on a weekly basis, right?


It's measured twice a year.


What was the journey to implementing a better Customer Experience like?


At the very beginning, we needed to stabilize the team. To have clarity about the vision, mission, values, and culture. We wouldn't have achieved these results in life if we had chaos at home. It took six to eight months of intensive work with the team.


We conducted a major employee survey, based on which we began making changes on a monthly basis. Also moving people to the right positions was also one of the problems. Then we defined the culture we wanted to have at Business Lease so that everyone feels comfortable here.


Imagine about 19-20 bullet points. Openness, open communication, active listening, feedback, and so on.. What was written had to be understood as well. This took from 6 to 8 months.

"We would have never achieved the results if we had chaos at home."

Then we could move on to the second phase. With Jan Urig, we had a two-day workshop, and he asked us which company was close to our hearts. I mentioned e-obuv because I love that within 48 hours I can have any shoes delivered and I can immediately try them on.


We had "Care" as our differentiator, but we didn't know what that meant. How would Business Lease differentiate itself? Then we got acquainted with the customer journey. For me, it was very shocking to find out that our process diagram was vertical. We described everything using our terminology, from our perspective, it was all about "us, us, us." The customer wasn't mentioned at all.


Jan showed us the customer journey horizontally. Everything was defined from the customer's perspective, which was a big difference. The second point was starting to work on it. The third point was how we address problems in the company.


The problem was that four of us, wise heads, sat down, we understood what it was about, we defined it, we implemented it, and we found that the customer still wasn't satisfied. Design thinking is about empathy with the customer. So, we started with mapping customer journeys. We did this through personal interviews with our customers. We put in a lot of effort, and prepared our questions.


So, we have the customer journey of our client, our driver, our Cars & Care customer who buys a used car after operational leasing. We also don't forget about the employees. We have the employee's customer journey as well. It needs regular refreshes, so we update it every year or two based on the feedback we collect through qualitative or quantitative surveys.


Have you identified what your opportunities for improvement are? Or how did opportunities for improvement compare to the customer journey you designed with customers? How did you prioritize among those various initiatives?


You need to distinguish between initiatives for a "quick fix”, "mid-term", and "long-term". You can't do everything, although I have this characteristic of wanting to do everything at once. The customer journey helped us identify where we have room for improvement. It repeatedly showed us that we thought differently.


We thought that our customers really cared about the delivery of a new vehicle, that it was a crucial moment for them. The opposite is true. Of course, they are very excited, but it's not crucial for the customer at all. What's crucial is, for example, the duration they stay with us. They don't want full service only on the day of delivering the car; they want it throughout the entire period. They need to drive, and we need to take care of service, tire service, and continuously improve our services.


Next is the termination of operational leasing. Is that also a source of concern? How does operational leasing end? Customers told us that returning their car is a very emotionally challenging experience for them too. We've marked this as "Red Point."


CX is about emotions. What emotional experience do the customers have at every point of contact with Business Lease. And the question arises here, how to deal with it?


We started doing projects - Rapid Deployment Units (SWAT). This way, we started transforming Red Points into Green Points with very nice results. To this day, we've completed 15 of such projects.


What does a SWAT project look like, and how does it differ from the others?


For the implementation of CX, onboarding all employees is crucial. Our employees themselves defined they want to put the customer first. We knew about Red Points and started addressing them through SWAT projects. The project consists of four to six people. It takes about six to 8 weeks and has a clearly defined goal. People volunteered for these projects. All areas of the company are represented in the project to cover the entire customer journey. Marketing and communication are also essential. I would highlight two projects that were successful.


Imagine that you have 7,500 cars, that's 7,500 drivers who use your services across Slovakia. We provide services through our partner service network, which is quite extensive. It's crucial that the Customer Experience is what the customer expects and that services work the same way everywhere. Therefore, it was essential to do two things.

"We thought that our customers really cared about the delivery of a new vehicle, that it was a crucial moment for them. However, the opposite is true."

First, unify the quality of services. With us, you get pick-up service, you get a replacement vehicle when yours stays in service for more than 24 hours. When the repair is over 150 euros, we wash your car. We had parameters we needed to standardize across Slovakia.


It was a big challenge to change all the contracts, and it also took us some time. However, we succeeded. Then there was the question of how to get customers into the right services. That's when we implemented a call center line, which we had to teach our customers to call. Today, about 78% or even 80% of our customers call this line, which guides them to repair shops where we have a consistent level of quality.


This SWAT project took longer than eight weeks. What was the time limit you set there? What was the output of this project after eight weeks, for example?


We implemented a call center line and we communicated the information about it through our website, through various documents, we handed over the car with information about the call center, etc. Until then, customers went everywhere, and it happened that they didn't get a pick-up or replacement vehicle.


After every service visit, we also measure the experience. In satisfaction surveys, we saw a clear jump. Previously, we scored around 78 points, and now it's over 90, but we still want to go further.


SWAT projects are intended to bring dynamics to large companies' overloaded processes. The significant value for the company is that it's not burdened by a two-year planned project.


The great advantage of Business Lease is that we have fifty employees, and we can implement changes quickly. We also have a clear vision from our group. The Business Lease Group operates in five countries, so we can implement changes as a group.


We don't have two-year projects here, except perhaps for digital transformation. The vision comes from above, but we have a lot of freedom in how we provide our services. We know our market, we know our customers, so we have a lot of flexibility in this regard.


I would like to go into more detail about the transformation within the organization. How did you manage to get employees on board? Was it part of your corporate strategy?


We introduced a different way of handling complaints through "customer feedback coffee sessions." Employees said they wanted to address customers and they made them their priority. They saw that satisfaction was declining. They named it themselves, and we created a tool.


Twice a week, people from various areas have 15 to 20-minute meetings where they discuss problems and immediately look for solutions.

Creating rituals while giving people the freedom to change things is crucial. Indeed, influencing the Customer Experience effectively cannot happen without a transformation of the culture, which was your first step.


Emphasizing the vision is also important, repeating it constantly, and returning to it. It wouldn't work without goals either. Suddenly, our goals weren't just financial results, the fleet, and profit. Employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction had the same weight. The whole team had the same goals, which were equally important to everyone.


I'll ask about the education of other people, not just management. Have they gone through any training or education there?


Know-how regarding customer experience is very scarce in Slovakia. We have Palo Mikolaj, who is certified. So, he brought knowledge, which I see as an important element in the company's development and growth. I started studying as well, but it's going slowly because I'm always so interested that I want to implement it into the company immediately.


I really appreciate companies that are in Slovakia and focus on CX because they helped us with customer journeys and interviews. We didn't have this know-how. We didn't train people; we simply involved them in activities.

"Knowledge about customer experience in Slovakia is very poor."

When we conducted qualitative interviews with our customers, we didn't do it by hiring a company to do the interviews and provide us with results. We had our employees conduct the interviews with external experts as observers and supervisors. It's best to learn by doing.


CX is about emotions, and those emotions come from our employees. To create a bond with the customer, we need to define six emotional drivers and use them. For example, when a customer says they trust us, or that we fix something for them, or that we keep promises, we try to motivate with it among various positions in the company so that employees know what they can influence and enhance.


Training and knowledge of the methodology are good, but the design of the customer experience is largely about common sense. You've tackled it very well by involving employees directly into real projects. Finally, I have two more questions. What are your challenges? What are your personal challenges?


We would like to expand our service portfolio. We want to introduce a fixed operational leasing product, including all possible costs like inflation fluctuations, interest rates, or the possibility that you might damage the car at the end. We want to launch it in January. This whole idea came from customer feedback.


The second service is called "Go Better," where we adapt feedback from customers. We toyed with the idea of how customers could become carbon-neutral. This Go Better program will enable them to do so. It's about first measuring their current carbon footprint, providing an analysis, followed by driver training for eco-friendly driving.


We have a digital tool for this that we'll implement in cars, which can measure your driving style and provide feedback. Finally, we have a clear process for how we can reduce emissions. In the long term, it's about service quality, and the approach of our people. I constantly keep this in mind and want to keep working on it. So, implementing these emotional drivers into the company and assigning them to specific roles is essential to me. But what I haven't mentioned yet is that on the 7th of August, we implemented a completely new digital system, an ERP system. We digitalized everything.


It's a significant step for us because it allows us to support future growth. With this system, we can easily absorb thousands of more cars. That's important, and that's where we're heading because achieving that five million revenue in one year is one thing, but when it happens for five consecutive years or even more, I'll be satisfied. That's my long-term goal, to truly have those five million consistently.


I'm curious about your design challenge in life that you'd like to solve.


The automation of the entire customer journey in terms of processes from the customer's perspective. So, today, there's a lot relying on the human factor. From our services to handling insurance claims, and more. On the other hand, only the human factor can provide emotion, however, I see a massive opportunity for digitalization and automation in that process. I wish it all went smoothly and automatically, systemically, from start to finish. In the end, the customer will say that they've never experienced anything better, not just because the process went smoothly and systematically, but because it frees our hands for even more humanity. Personalized service. When we manage to harmonize this, customers will be extremely satisfied and will say they've never experienced anything better than Business Lease.


So, you're from the group that sees automation positively because it will give you more time for relationships and interactions. I don't know if you have data from your segment. I recently read agency data from agencies that were able to implement automation, mainly using Artificial Intelligence. In this case, their gross margins increased by 70%. So, automation could also help you achieve your long-term goal.


Listen to the whole interview with Lucia Čišková in Slovak:

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

Design is all around us. Minimum Viable Podcast explores design with a small “d” – the one that looks for solutions to people's problems. In it, together with our guests, we address topics that are related to design, but we normally do not associate with it. Thanks to the Zeldeo production studio and our production manager Mojmír Procházka for the cooperation.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #20: CX in small organizations

Michaela Koklesová

Customer insights are not just data; they are a holistic understanding of customers that goes beyond demographics. The real challenge is turning this knowledge into products and services that truly matter.

Watch a recording of an evening dedicated to CX insights that drive business from the beautiful premises of Opero in Prague. On Wednesday 20 September, experts from EY Doberman and Lighting Beetle* revealed strategies for creating products and services that resonate with new as well as loyal customers.

Whether you're a business leader, a product lead or just a fan of systematic approach to customer experience design, this edition of Lighting Talks* dedicated to CX insights that drive business is just right for you. The recordings are placed below each speaker annotation:


Two lightning talks


Anton Schubert: The Shift from Product to Service


Anton Schubert, Innovation Lead at EY Doberman, will take us on a journey from the birth of Service Design in the 90’s to the present era. He will touch on the impact of digitalization and the effects of a new generation of customers who have moved away from the concept of ownership to sharing and subscription.

As the world continues to digitalize, the opportunity to build loyal customers through a digital service ecosystem increases at an unprecedented rate. Anton will share his thoughts on how companies should build their service ecosystem, and what key things to keep in mind when doing so.





About Anton Schubert
Anton is a design industry veteran with more than 25 years experience, working globally with brands such as VW, Samsung, Prada, Lufthansa, Ford, Vodafone, Allianz, Nestle and P&G amongst many others.

Anton has built and led successful design teams in Helsinki, Stockholm and London with Futurice, Vincit and Gofore. Currently Innovation Lead at EY Doberman, the focus of Anton's work is to develop strong purpose driven brands, service innovation, design led culture change and sustainable business transformation.


Michal Blažej: Potent customer insights that drive business


Michal Blažej, Managing Director of Lighting Beetle*, shares his experience in designing services that make life easier for millions of people. The principles are all well known – the process must be co-creative, user-centric, holistic. But there is one principle, not much talked about, which makes an idea potent. Learn why not all insights are created equal, and how to get to those that have the potential to redefine the relationship between your brand and the customer.






About Lighting Beetle*
Customer Experience studio that drives your business. A team of 70 experienced professionals who love to guide clients like Škoda, European Patent Office, Slovak National Gallery or Orange on their journeys to better market positions, design processes and client centric transformation. We create digital products and design services that make the lives of millions of people easier.


‌About the series

Lighting Talks* are a series of hybrid meetups organized by a CX studio Lighting Beetle*. The events cover topics from UX design, data analytics, engineering, customer experience, product management and more. The events are a fit for anyone who understands the value of a quality customer experience that drives businesses and is on a lookout for inspirations.

From agencies to corporates, from freelancers to managers – each time you can gather insights in two lightning talks and/or a panel tailored to a specific topic related to customer experience or digital product design. In person at our office in Bratislava, Slovakia, or from anywhere in an online stream. Records will be available shortly after each event on our Youtube channel.

Get inspired!

All Stories

Podcasts

Events

Tools

Newsletter

Discovery Backlog: How to seek opportunities for better customer experience

Minimum Viable Podcast #24: From designer to investor

Desirability: Why usability testing ≠ good product

CX and Metrics: How to measure the ROI of a good customer experience

Minimum Viable Podcast #23: CX in logistics

Minimum Viable Podcast #22: Future Thinking

What designing for Škoda infotainment taught us about HMI

Minimum Viable Podcast #21: CX in banking

Minimum Viable Podcast #20: CX in small organizations

Video: Lighting Talks* on Impactful Services

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Your journey
starts here

Get inspired!

All Stories

Podcasts

Events

Tools

Newsletter

Discovery Backlog: How to seek opportunities for better customer experience

Minimum Viable Podcast #24: From designer to investor

Desirability: Why usability testing ≠ good product

CX and Metrics: How to measure the ROI of a good customer experience

Minimum Viable Podcast #23: CX in logistics

Minimum Viable Podcast #22: Future Thinking

What designing for Škoda infotainment taught us about HMI

Minimum Viable Podcast #21: CX in banking

Minimum Viable Podcast #20: CX in small organizations

Video: Lighting Talks* on Impactful Services

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Your journey starts here

Your journey
starts here