Validate Your Redefined Customer Journeys Quickly
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COVID-19 has accelerated the need for new customer journeys like curbside pickup. Now is the time for businesses to account for contactless services and ensure customer safety.
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Validate Your Redefined Customer Journeys Quickly
- 1. Validate Your Redefined Customer Journeys Quickly Kelly Price Senior Analyst, Forrester Carlton Retland Principal Solutions Engineer,Applause FEATURING
- 2. 2 Guest Speaker: Kelly Price Senior Analyst Forrester Carlton Retland Principal Solutions Engineer Applause
- 3. Today’s Agenda 3 • Forrester research intoCOVID-19’s impact on customer expectations • How companies are adapting (or not adapting) to COVID-19 • Different methods to build a customer journey • Potential points of friction within a customer journey • Real-life examples of customer journey testing (and what that means)
- 4. COVID-19 Sparked Shopping Anxieties and Expectation Shifts Base: 1,093 US online adults | Source: Forrester Analytics Customer Technographics COVID_19 Survey (Wave 2) 55% plan to return slowing to in-store shopping 50% will only shop in stores with thorough nightly cleaning and employees with PPE 42% do not plan to return to stores when restrictions are lifted (or haven’t if they have been lifted) 39% plan to resume normal shopping behavior
- 5. Base: 1,093 US online adults | Source: Forrester Analytics Customer Technographics COVID_19 Survey (Wave 2) Curb-side pickup 68% Online grocery 60% Contactless payment 61% Same day delivery (fee) 53% COVID-19 Sparked New Behavior Adoption…
- 6. Base: 1,093 US online adults | Source: Forrester Analytics Customer Technographics COVID_19 Survey (Wave 2) COVID-19 Sparked New Behavior Adoption… and Expect Those Behaviors to Stick Curb-side pickup 68% 35% Online grocery 60% 36% Contactless payment 61% 35% Same day delivery (fee) 53% 32%
- 7. Failure to Adapt Means Playing Catch-up With the Future
- 8. 8 Small design details can derail otherwise well-thought-out experiences
- 9. Digital Sales 242% 60% Fulfilled Through Store Sources: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-best-buy-second-quarter-results-20200825-l6hgwxhhdbbwnefv6dsivuddoi-story.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/curbside-pickup-is-exceptionally-sticky-and-will-continue-postpandemic-mc-kinsey-retail-expert-183712446.html
- 10. “We are adding functionality that will display information about high and low traffic times and provide digital updates for customers…we will continue to add features and capabilities to the app.” – Corie Barry, CEO Sources: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-best-buy-second-quarter-results-20200825-l6hgwxhhdbbwnefv6dsivuddoi-story.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/curbside-pickup-is-exceptionally-sticky-and-will-continue-postpandemic-mc-kinsey-retail-expert-183712446.html
- 11. Customer Journeys Aren’t Static… 11
- 12. Customer Journeys Aren’t Static… 12 New pathways appear
- 13. Customer Journeys Aren’t Static… 13 Sections of journeys disappear
- 14. Customer Journeys Bring Complexities Across Many Touchpoints 14 Retail Buy online, pick up in store Buy online, return in store Endless aisle Ship to store Ship from store Voice commerce Travel Mobile boarding passes Mobile check in Mobile keys Chatbots Financial Services CardlessATM Mobile check deposit Mobile payments Chatbots IVR Media & Entertainment Multi-platform experiences Mobile tickets In-car entertainment Voice applications Voice Customer On-Site Kiosks Call Center Social Media Mobile Tablet Email Web
- 15. 15 Journey maps are documents that visually illustrate customers’ processes, needs, and perceptions throughout their relationship with a company. They depict goal-oriented scenarios of specific customers, and include essential data on customers steps, touchpoints, and subjective experience.
- 16. Key Components of a Journey Map 16 Adds items to cart Checks out Puts pick-up reminder on calendar Waits two days Drives to store CUSTOMER STEPS FEELINGS Excited “I found what I need” Nervous “I’ve never done this before” “I hope this works!” “So far so good!” Eager “Don’t want to forget about his” “Excited to get my stuff!” Confused “Where am I supposed to go?” TOUCH- POINTS Website E-Mail iPhone calendar Car … … … Google Maps “I guess I’ll park here and wait…”
- 17. Adds items to cart Checks out Puts pick-up reminder on calendar Waits two days Drives to store CUSTOMER STEPS FEELINGS Excited “I found what I need” Nervous “I’ve never done this before” “I hope this works!” “So far so good!” Eager “Don’t want to forget about his” “Excited to get my stuff!” Confused “Where am I supposed to go?” … … … “I guess I’ll park here and wait…” TOUCH- POINTS Website E-Mail iPhone calendar Car Google Maps Additional swim lanes Key Components of a Journey Map
- 18. The Seven Steps of Highly Effective Journey Mapping 18 1. Find purpose and form a coalition 2. Create urgency among stakeholders and partners 3. Prepare and plan 4. Map the journey 5. Validate the journey 6. Create short-term wins 7. Embed and aim higher Framing the effort Ensuring gains from the journey map Creating the journey map
- 19. 1. Find purpose and form a coalition 2. Create urgency among stakeholders and partners 3. Prepare and plan 4. Map the journey 5. Validate the journey 6. Create short-term wins 7. Embed and aim higher Framing the effort Ensuring gains from the journey map Creating the journey map The Seven Steps of Highly Effective Journey Mapping 19
- 20. Four Approaches to Mapping a Customer Journey 20 Hypothesis-first Research-first Co-creation Quick-fire Cross-functional team alignment and buy-in of CX as a business imperative Deep customer understanding and insights Customer involvement and collaboration Use existing knowledge to quickly map and take action StrengthApproach 1. Find purpose and form a coalition 2. Create urgency among stakeholders and partners 3. Prepare and plan 4. Map the journey 5. Validate the journey 6. Create short-term wins 7. Embed and aim higher
- 21. Determining Your Research “ROI” 21 Risk • What is the risk if we get this wrong? • What customers will this impact? • What is the business value of this journey? Existing Knowledge • How much do we already know about this? • What is our degree of certainty? Timeline • Do we have time to act on what we learn? • Is there adequate time to do quality research?
- 22. Determining Your Research “ROI” 22 More thorough research required More room for trial and error/experimentation Ability to move fast and skip steps Better to slow down and assess risks of unknowns Match research needs to appropriate timeline Outline risks of too little time, or reduce the scope of the project Risk • What is the risk if we get this wrong? • What customers will this impact? • What is the business value of this journey? Existing Knowledge • How much do we already know about this? • What is our degree of certainty? Timeline • Do we have time to act on what we learn? • Is there adequate time to do quality research?
- 23. Four Approaches to Mapping a Customer Journey 23 Hypothesis-first Research-first Co-creation Quick-fire Cross-functional team alignment and buy-in of CX as a business imperative Deep customer understanding and insights Customer involvement and collaboration Use existing knowledge to quickly map and take action StrengthApproach 1. Find purpose and form a coalition 2. Create urgency among stakeholders and partners 3. Prepare and plan 4. Map the journey 5. Validate the journey 6. Create short-term wins 7. Embed and aim higher
- 24. End to End Journey Research and Testing is a Lengthy Process 24 Gathering existing data Identify gaps in knowledge Create a research plan Recruit representative customers Conduct interviews for initial insight Understand context over time with a diary study Dig deeper with follow up interviews Validate with larger group of customers
- 25. End to End Journey Research and Testing is a Lengthy Process 25 Gathering existing data Identify gaps in knowledge Create a research plan Recruit representative customers Conduct interviews for initial insight Understand context over time with a diary study Dig deeper with follow up interviews Validate with larger group of customers Plan: 1-3 weeks Recruit & schedule: weeks to months Research: 3 weeks to 3 months Validate: 1-4 weeks
- 26. Employ Strategies to Make Journey Research and Testing More Efficient 26 Gathering existing data Identify gaps in knowledge Create a research plan Recruit representative customers Conduct interviews for initial insight Understand context over time with a diary study Dig deeper with follow up interviews Validate with larger group of customers Plan: 1-3 weeks Recruit & schedule: weeks to months Research: 3 weeks to 3 months Validate: 1-4 weeks
- 27. Four Approaches to Mapping a Customer Journey Hypothesis-first Research-first Co-creation Quick-fire Cross-functional team alignment and buy-in of CX as a business imperative Deep customer understanding and insights Customer involvement and collaboration Use existing knowledge to quickly map and take action StrengthApproach 1. Find purpose and form a coalition 2. Create urgency among stakeholders and partners 3. Prepare and plan 4. Map the journey 5. Validate the journey 6. Create short-term wins 7. Embed and aim higher
- 28. Quick-fire journey mapping 28 Define the scope of the journey Identify and recruit a cross-functional team Map the journey Identify and prioritize journey improvements Ideate solutions Implement and validate
- 29. Quick-fire journey mapping 29 • Recruit relevant “backstage” and “frontstage” employees to help map the experience • Socialize the journey mapping process, benefits, and expectations of participation • Identify the scenario and scope of the journey • Define roles and teams responsible for journey design and delivery • Gather any existing data about the journey • Schedule a 60-90 minute session with your cross-functional team • Map the journey • Build out with any existing data to proactively identify pain points • Assess the “health” of the journey – experience highs and lows • Identify needed experience improvements • Ideate and prioritize design solutions • Create an implementation and measurement plan • Track performance and iterate Define the scope of the journey Identify and recruit a cross-functional team Map the journey Identify and prioritize journey improvements Ideate solutions Implement and validate
- 30. When Data Is Lacking, Consider What Could Go Wrong And Its Effects 30 Adds items to cart Chooses “pick up” option Selects delivery time slot Checks out Reviews confirmation email Puts pick-up reminder on calendar Waits two days Drives to store Looks for “contact- less pick up” sign Parks Waits for store employee CUSTOMER STEPS
- 31. When Data Is Lacking, Consider What Could Go Wrong And Its Effects 31 Adds items to cart Chooses “pick up” option Selects delivery time slot Checks out Reviews confirmation email Puts pick-up reminder on calendar Waits two days Drives to store Looks for “contact- less pick up” sign Parks Waits for store employee CUSTOMER STEPS Can’t find option Doesn’t under - stand what it is Can’t find a time that works & doesn’t know what to do next Doesn’t see email Email not enough of a reminder Running late & needs to change time Can’t find where to go Doesn’t have order number What common thing might go wrong at key touchpoints?
- 32. When Data Is Lacking, Consider What Could Go Wrong And Its Effects 32 Adds items to cart Chooses “pick up” option Selects delivery time slot Checks out Reviews confirmation email Puts pick-up reminder on calendar Waits two days Drives to store Looks for “contact- less pick up” sign Parks Waits for store employee CUSTOMER STEPS Can’t find option Doesn’t under - stand what it is Can’t find a time that works & doesn’t know what to do next Doesn’t see email Email not enough of a reminder Running late & needs to change time Can’t find where to go Doesn’t have order number What common thing might go wrong at key touchpoints? Chooses alternate delivery – less satisfied Has different expectation Abandon purchase Use to decide (1) what is critical to include in early versions (vs. tackle later) and (2) what to measure and how to measure Consider outcomes and severity
- 33. Potential Points Of Frictions With Curbside Pickup Journey 33 SHOP > PURCHASE > PICKUP Create Cart Payment Schedule Pickup & Location Receipt/Confirmation & Email Locate Designated Curbside Pickup Parking (via signs), Geofencing or Send Notification to Inform Customer Service of Customer’s Arrival Store Clerk Arrives and Scans QR Code on Mobile Device Search Shop Availability/In-Stock Location Check for Curbside Receive Push Notifications Order is Ready for Pickup Receive Items Confirm Order Receive Physical Receipt
- 34. WHAT IS APPLAUSE’S PERSPECTIVE ON NEW CUSTOMER JOURNEYS?
- 35. World’s Largest Community Of Vetted Digital Professionals 35 Available in real-time and selected to represent your customers. Custom, Vetted Testing & Feedback Teams Any demographic, device, and region to achieve your specific needs IOT CUSTOMER JOURNEY AIUSABILITY ACCESSIBILITY TEST AUTOMATION MANUAL FUNCTIONAL APPLAUSE SOLUTIONS VOICEPAYMENT SECURITY 500,000+ Vetted Members 200+ Countries Speaking 80 Languages 2,500,000 Devices
- 36. What is Customer Journey Testing? 36 Customer JourneyTesting is a holistic testing approach that measures the quality of an end-to-end customer experience and help identify customer friction across 4 dimensions: • Functional • UI/UX Experience • Payments • Operational Readiness Friction is defined as any interaction with a product, service or brand (digital or physical) that prevents a customer from intuitively and seamlessly completing a task or achieving goal
- 37. IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON CUSTOMER JOURNEYS
- 38. U.S. restaurant visits paid by mobile app increased by 50% from 2017 to 2018. (Source: NPD) Pre-COVID, 87% of retailers agreed that new customer journeys (such as curbside) were critical to their business, yet only 8% had mastered their new journeys (Source: Brightpearl) • Organizations have been thinking about optimizing customer experiences across multiple touchpoints for years • Example: Mobile ordering and in-store pickup were introduced years ago and were picking up steam in recent years • COVID-19 has accelerated that evolution! Customer Journeys Were Already Evolving Before 2020 38 50%
- 39. Our Research Shows More Retailers Are Now Trying New Customer Journeys 39 • In recent research, Applause found 3 out of 15 large retailers are now offering curbside returns • Essentially no large retailers were doing curbside returns before COVID- 19 • Applause is now sending people to those 3 retailers to test out the curbside return process and go through that customer journey
- 40. • Without contactless or curbside options, many retailers and restaurants can’t collect revenue • Now as we head into the fall and winter, alternatives like outdoor dining won’t be an attractive option for many customers • This makes it’s revenue-critical for these businesses to successfully execute their curbside offerings New Customer Journeys Are Now a Revenue Lifeline 40 Starting September 30, NewYork City restaurants can resume indoor dining with 25% capacity. But this change still can’t make restaurants “whole” – curbside pickup will remain critical.
- 41. WHERE DO ISSUES ARISE WITH THESE CUSTOMER JOURNEYS?
- 42. Learning from Other Retailers’ Mistakes… 42 • Options for curbside pickup were not clear on the website/app • Pickup instructions were not provided after completing the purchase • There were issues at the store/during the pickup (wait times, hiccups in the process, etc.) • Users feel unsafe during the experience • Users didn’t receive proper communications throughout the experience (push notifications, emails, SMS, etc.) • Purchase wasn’t correctly refunded • To name but a few …
- 43. Real example of testing for a major retailer 43 A major retail brand recently engaged Applause to test its customer journeys • Applause provided testers on iOS and Android devices, and split them into two groups • One group tested pickup and the other group tested delivery • Both groups tested: • Creating an account • Finding items on the website • Buying items • Scheduling the pickup/delivery • Receiving the items • Post-purchase actions The testers made several notable observations, and Applause offered actionable recommendations All testers adhere to CDC guidelines (masks, hand-sanitizing, etc.)
- 44. Testing Results 44 • Account creation • Understanding which items are fulfilled by the retailer, and which are fulfilled by other retailers • Delivery experience was rated as extremely easy WhatWorked
- 45. Testing Results • Items missing from more than half of orders • Multiple delivery dates in a single order • Inability to extend pick-up window if the order was delayed • Inaccurate order statuses on website • Missing notifications • Inability to easily create an account at the checkout stage Major Issues 45 These represent Functional and Operational Readiness issues. Next Steps: Investigate and re-test the same locations to determine cause of issues.
- 46. Recommendations 1. Define your assumptions prior to mapping the journey 2. Launch and test MVP journeys, and scale up functionality and complexity over time 3. Stress test the journey with different scenarios and personas – including edge cases 4. Take an iterative approach (test and learn, and test again) 5. Ensure you are prepared to act on feedback you collect
Notes de l'éditeur
- So it should come as no surprise that in the wake of COVID people’s shopping behavior has changed – both because they were forced to, but also as things have opened back up it sparked anxieties that are sticking with us. At Forrester we’ve done a series of survey waves of the us consumer population about some of these topics, and we learned that because of these anxieties, people have new expectations about their shopping experiences. Most are cautious about returning in store, are cognizant of the PPE or safety standards. And more also don’t plan to go back at all until safety standards are lifted than those who plan- or are- resuming normal shopping behavior.
- We also know that new behaviors have been adopted as a result of COVID-driven restrictions. US consumer are shopping in new ways – we found that 68% used curb side pick up, 60% ordered groceries online, 61% used contactless payment, and 53% used same day delivery.
- And we also see that a good number of consumers expect to continue to do these things…even when they are no longer “necessary”. These are all experiences that were available prior to the Covid, but the imperative for incorporating them into your shopping experience is much higher now. The shut down acted as a catalyst, for adoption. Which means that…
- Companies that don’t adapt and commit to updating experiences now are not just missing out in the near term – they are setting themselves up to play catch up with the future…constantly being behind the curve and suffering the business consequences of this. We saw this when the pandemic first hit amongst many companies that had up until this point been lax or behind the curve with digital suffer greatly both in terms of business impact and overall brand perception.
- But successfully rolling out these experience isn’t binary – even against companies who have adapted these experiences well, they still have minor design details that can derail experiences when they aren’t proactively monitored and fixed. Take the example of contactless pick up, I heard a story about someone who shopping at Target – who for all intents and purposes has been pretty successful with their contactless pickup – but this person circled around and around looking for where to park to get his order – finally went inside and then found out his order had been canceled because he wasn’t in the right spot…amongst other strings of complexity – and then later discovered, that because of the car he was in, he simply couldn’t see that the pole on the top left said “drive-up”. So critical touchpoints like this – which we’ll talk about later all need to be consistently evaluated and optimized to make sure that there aren’t hiccups in the experience and that it is continuously improving. Source: https://twitter.com/Drift0r/status/1287826326444019717
- Best Buy is an example of a company that I think has done this very well. When the pandemic hit their digital sales went up 242% and 60% of those digital sales were fulfilled through the store – which meant scaling up pick up quickly. And they started simply – adding a use curbside pick up option at check out that was followed by an email with instructions and what to bring…by starting simply, they’ve been able to master the mvp of this experience before scaling into more complexity.
- In an earnings call Corrie Barry, Best Buy’s CEO noted that after their initial success, they are planning to continue to advance these capabilities into the future…and this really speaks to how companies should address the design and improvement of customer journeys…as something that is constantly changing and being improved.
- And the reason this is so important is that customer journeys are not static.
- Sometimes external forces like technology shifts, new competition, as well as internal shifts with in customers like changes in preferences and behavior result in new pathways the customer takes in pursuit of goal – or a shift of what that goal is all together.
- Other times these forces may cause sections of journeys to disappear – either because customers no longer feel the need to take that journey, or other options becomes easier – or in situations like some of the journeys we’ve talked about, an external forcing function makes us have to adapt. So the point here is that without actively researching and monitoring we become vulnerable to the complexity and transient nature of journeys, rather than proactive getting in front of them to drive needed change and improvement in customers’ experiences. And this isn’t just true for major shifts like we’ve seen as a result of COVID– complexity is inherent in almost all journeys, and something that needs to be proactively monitored.
- Journeys aren’t static and there is a lot of variation across industries. You can see some of the journeys across different industries. Today we’ll be talking about retail, but this diagram basically explains all the different touchpoints a customer can have with your brand. In many cases, when it comes to CJ, they’re going to touch multiple touchpoints. They may need to interact with their device, they may do curbside pickup, or many others. The key part is, you need to provide a quality and consistent experience across all of these journeys. Old talk track – do not say given current slide order And when we talk about types of friction, you also need to account for all the differences between verticals and all the different kinds of devices and ways that customers can interact with an organization. We used to call this ‘omnichannel’ and you can see why here in the middle diagram – there are so many channels for customers, from email, to social, to mobile and tablet, to in-store. Experiences across all those channels need to be strong and safe today. And then in the top left of this slide here, I think retail will probably be the most germane to this conversation. We’ll spend a lot of time talking about curbside and contactless pickup, and you can see just a few of the potential points of friction listed under retail and the other industries too
- So how do we understand that complexity? This is where journey maps are useful! What are journey maps? Documents that visually illustrate customers’ processes, needs, and perceptions throughout their relationship with a company. Build – And a quality journey map does, at minimum, three key things – it depicts a goal oriented scenario – meaning it is mapping out something that customer is looking to achieve and do and is grounded in that perspective, not the company’s perspective. And it does this for a specific customer – meaning a specific type of customer – so a persona or an archetype or another model that represents a customer group with similar goals and behaviors. And finally it includes essential data that at minimum are the steps the customer takes in pursuit of that goal, the touchpoints they interact with along the way.
- What does this look like it practice? So let’s break down what a journey map might look like with a very simple example Build Let’s focus on the journey of the day – curbside pick up. First we want to define where a journey begins and ends based on the scope of the project we’re working on. For this example we’re beginning at checkout and moving through pick up (read through post-its). Build Then we map out the touchpoints they interact with, both inside and outside our company’s ecosystem. This enables us to link pain points from the customers’ pov to touchpoints (or lack of touchpoints) and the need to be improved. Build And finally – what is the customer thinking and feeling – what is that subjective experience, that help’s us identify highs and lows
- If you’ve ever done journey mapping, you probably know that they can include much more, including digging into the ecosystem that underlies touchpoints, questions that you have about the experience that you want to validate and explore, as well as capturing ideations for improvement that might make into a design process that follows the initial mapping exercise. But how do you create a map? And how do you go from an initial map, to one that is continuously monitoring and tested.
- At Forrester we have a methodology called the seven steps of highly effective journey mapping. The first two steps are about framing – laying the foundation so to speak so you’re setting yourself up for success. This includes finding a purpose and forming a coalition – in other words ensuring that you are journey mapping for a reason that there is something you are looking to understand and improve in the experience and you have internal alignment around that. And then taking that alignment and creating urgency for why this is something that needs to be done amongst your stakeholders and partners. From there you move into mapping the journey itself – which includes preparing and planning – who needs to be involved, what approach you’re going to take, mapping the journey, and then validating that journey with customer research. But we don’t map a journey just to have wall art, so you need a plan for how to take action on what you learn. A great way to think about this, especially when getting started, is to find a few short-term – low hanging fruit wins and run with those. Once the value is proven from those short-term wins, embed journey mapping in downstream prioritization and workflows and aim to impact the business more fundamentally.
- Now – within that middle section “mapping the journey” there are multiple approaches you can take.
- These approaches include hypothesis first, research first, co-creation, and quickfire. Hypothesis first means using your internal knowledge and existing data and research to map what you think the journey is, the filling in the gaps with research. Research first is used when you don’t have a strong sense of the hypothesis and need to build the map from scratch. Co-creation is conducted in a collaborative workshop environment with customers where employees and customers create the map together, and quick-fire is an approach where you use internal knowledge to quickly map out a journey to drive quick wins. So then the question that follows is – which one should we use? And the answer is, of course, it depends. Journey mapping is at its core, a research activity – it’s just a matter of, how much research do we need to in order to get an accurate enough picture of this journey to drive intelligent experience improvement decisions based on it. And one great way to evaluate this is to establish he “ROI” of research for your journey mapping project.
- Journey mapping is at it’s core a research activity – but how much research is needed – and therefore what approach to take is dependent on a few key factors. The three dimensions to look at: Risk – read through Existing knowledge – Read through Timeline – read through.
- When risk is high more thorough research is required – and a hypothesis first or research first approach is ideal. With lower risk, there is more room to make educated guesses, experiment, and iterate on experiences. When you already have a ton of research and data about the journey – you can just focusing on filling in gaps with more focused research studies or a co-creation session. When existing knowledge is low, it makes more sense to figure out what your assumptions are and do research to overcome them – mitigated of course by the risk associated with the journey. And finally with timeline - when you have time – that doesn’t mean you need to take all of it, but you can match the approach to the amount of research the other two categories call for. When time is short, it’s important to outline the risks of moving too fast – and either slow down, or reduce the scope to something more focused where it is easier to iterate on decisions made based on the outcomes of the journey.
- So journeys with higher research “ROI” – tend to use a hypothesis or research first approach.
- But this can be lengthy process. (read through different steps)
- And when we start to break this down into a time line – we can start getting into a time horizon of multiple months for a single project…which for foundational journeys meant to drive prioritization of projects of a full year or longer might be ok – but often we’re dealing with journeys that have a good amount of risk, and not a lot of time. And while having thoughtful discussion around striking a balance between quality and speed is always important. It’s also important to utilize strategies that help you optimize your process
- Looking at the core steps of actually doing the research – from recruitment, to running the study to validation. There are a variety of techniques that you can employ to hack these steps. From working with a recruitment vendor, to finding quality customer proxies, to substituting in person studies with remote ones, and using existing data infrastructure to facilitate validation. Pass to Carlton Carlton: In order to be efficient, you need to rapidly spin up teams who can provide feedback quickly. This is something we’ve seen with a lot of customers, and this is a way to make this process more efficient and Identifying their customers or customers who match their demographic – that’s the value. We give them the ability to orchestrate these journeys along multiple regions concurrently.
- But what about journeys where research ROI is low – when we need to move fast, and when the overall risk of the journey lends itself to more experimentation. In journeys like curbside pick up during COVID where a really fast decision needs to be made, quick fire journey mapping is an approach that, when done well, can help you figure out where risk is embedded in the journey, and choose where to move faster or slower in terms of the experiences improvements and innovations you put into the market based on that.
- Broadly – here is the process for quick fire journey mapping [read through each step]
- [Read through each stage] There are certain places where Applause intersects with this (pass to Carlton) Carlton can add value on bolded items
- How can you do this in a way that helps mitigate risk, but still enables you to move as quickly as possible? Let’s work with this same hypothetical curbside journey we worked with earlier. You have your best idea of the customer’s steps that they take mapped out.
- The first thing you can do is with your team – ideally a cross function group – is brainstorm and document the potential things that could wrong across the steps in the customer’s journey. For example – if you are adding a curbside option to checkout – can the customer find it? What if when the customer gets to the pick up they don’t know where to go, and so on.
- The first thing you can do is with your team – ideally a cross function group – is brainstorm and document the potential things that could wrong across the steps in the customer’s journey. For example – if you are adding a curbside option to checkout – can the customer find it? What if when the customer gets to the pick up they don’t know where to go, and so on.
- And now, I mentioned Curbside Pickup a moment ago – this is a look at a lot of the areas that we see retail companies or restaurants need to consider when it comes to Curbside Pickup. This is by no means an exclusive list, by the way – this is just a starting point. So going from left to right, we’ve got different stages – shop to purchase to pickup to service. Each section has a lot of elements. I won’t go through all these elements, but a few elements that stand out to me that I think are interesting nowadays is now checking for curbside, scheduling the pickup and location, receiving push notification, locate the designated curbside areas, the store clerk coming out of the store, and of course receiving the items. It’s more important than ever to make this flawless.
- For those who aren’t familiar with Applause, we have the largest global community of QA testers. What we’re able to do is source of teams of testers that match the demographics, locations and profiles that our customers care about, and have them provide testing services for those companies. So for example, if a company is launching a new application in new markets – say, in South America or Europe – and the company needs to ensure that the new app functions properly in those market, we’re able to put together a team of in-market testers who can run through the app, perform testing, and Now you can see at the bottom of this slide, we’re able to provide many different types of testing solutions for our customers. The example I discussed above about the new app in Europe would likely be manual functional. We also offer Accessibility Testing, Voice/AI, and others – the one we’ll be discussing today is our Customer Journey Testing solution.
- So you might be asking yourself – what is Customer Journey Testing? This is a way to take a holistic approach to measure the quality of a customer’s experience, all the way from Point A to Point Z, and then identify where the points of friction are along that journey. Later on, I’ll show you an example of some of the results from recent Customer Journey Testing we performed for a major retailer offering new pickup and delivery options. Now one thing to take away from here is Customer Friction, and this is important – this can be any type of interaction along the journey that prevents the customer from intuitively and seamlessly completing a task or achieving a goal. So for example, if the customer can’t check out on your app, that’s an obvious source of friction. Or if they show up for curbside pickup and employees aren’t ready for curbside pickup, that’s a different kind of friction, but it’s still significant and a retailer needs to correct that. So when we’re talking about friction, we have 4 types you can see here: Functional, UI/UX, Payments and then Operational Readiness
- Now we mentioned COVID there, and I wanted to spend a few minutes looking at how COVID is impacting customer journeys, especially when it comes to revenue and journeys like curbside pickup and contactless pickup
- One of the big things to consider is that COVID-19 did not kick off a transition to new kinds of customer journeys from scratch. This was a transition already happening – the pandemic is just accelerating that. It’s kind of like Hollywood movies – we were already seeing a transition towards streaming in the last 5 years or so, but movie theaters were still a significant portion of the ecosystem. Now, if you’re a studio releasing a movie, you need to look at streaming if you want to have any success in 2020. You can see some of the stats here about mobile app usage for US restaurants, and there was agreement that curbside pickup was becoming critical prior to COVID. But the vast majority of retailers weren’t there yet before COVID. So then when the pandemic hit, it was a rush to make your curbside and contactless options up and running as smoothly as possible.
- Here at Applause, we’ve conducted some research to showcase this point. So think about curbside returns – this is the next level of curbside service. Imagine you’re making a return, you schedule it from home, and then pull up to the store and open up your truck, and you hand off the purchase back to the store. This makes a lot of sense during COVID, but was a feature that was pretty much non-existent before COVID. It certainly wasn’t something that we at Applause had really seen in conducing customer journey testing. But now, starting this summer, Applause started doing some research into some of the largest retailers in the U.S., and we’ve found that 20% are now offering curbside returns. So this is a pretty significant shift, and it’s a new feature to really figure out. You’ve got to educate customers on how to do it, educate your employees, get the process down pat. What do customers feel safe with doing? What is easy for them, and what’s hard? So here at Applause, we think this is an area that organizations should definitely be looking at testing out thoroughly to confirm they’re doing it in a way that customers will respond positively to. There are no established best practices on something like curbside returns, so it’s an opportunity to do some research and validate the customer journey, especially the in-person portion.
- So why are retailers looking at new features like curbside return? The fact is, these new customer journeys are a revenue lifeline. Quite simply, it’s going to be hard to bring in revenue without these offerings. We all know that, depending on local regulations, you might have limits on the # of people in your store or restaurant, or maybe can’t offer indoor dining at all. You can see here, New York City restaurants will soon be able to open back up for indoor dining at 25% capacity. That’s obviously nice for them, but we’re in the fall season now. As the Starks like to say, Winter Is Coming. You might not have much business for outdoor dining soon. So indoor dining at 25% is better than nothing, but 25% is still missing out on a lot of revenue. So having something like curbside pickup or contactless delivery to supplement the in-person income, it’s absolutely critical for survival Even if you can offer something pretty close to normal, that’s tenuous – an uptick in COVID cases in your area, or an outbreak in your establishment, can shut that all down. So this is really revenue-critical. That brings us back to the issue of what we’re discussing today – when you roll out new customer journeys, you need to ensure that they’re working well, with limited friction points, and most importantly today, that they’re providing safety. So all of the points of friction we discussed earlier – ordering on your website, being able to check out, having clear signage, getting notifications – still apply, but now the in-person safely element is added in. What you don’t want to do is force customers to choose their own personal safety over loyalty to your brand. Carlton can add flavor with a personal story (7-11)
- So let’s take a look at some of the issues that we see come up when Applause performs Customer Journey Testing for a retailer.
- These are some of the common in-person issues that Applause has found for organizations that are offering curbside pickup or contactless delivery. Any one of these issues could prevent a customer from coming back again, and that includes a feeling of being unsafe. Carlton to add some flavor with his story about coffee or ice cream
- So let’s take a look at a real example of testing Applause did for a major retailer not too long ago. This was a neat scenario, and you can see some of the actions that we had testers go through, half of them on an iPhone, half on an Android, and half doing pickup and the other half doing delivery. The testers would create an account, find and buy items, schedule the pickup or delivery, then receive the order through the chosen method, and then perform an action after the transaction was complete One thing I want to highlight here is that our testers are able to safely conduct in-person testing, such as with curbside pickup. Applause enforces safety guidelines and has best practices to reduce risk Sanitize devices before sending to a tester and when they send back to Applause Require adherence to local regulations, including mask-wearing Work with organizations to identify target locations that are not in high-risk areas
- So what did our testers find that worked? Account creation was pretty easy, no issues there. Obviously that’s useful to know – if folks can’t create an account, that could be crippling On this particular site, they wanted to know if customers could easily find items they were offering, and items fulfilled elsewhere. That was actually easy to do for the testers And the delivery experience went well too. So that is critical right now, and obviously a great sign for the retailer
- And now … what didn’t work for the testers? This is always where the customer perks up a little bit. So in this case, we’ve highlighted a half-dozen of the issues we found that you can see here. A lot of these tie back to Functional and Operational Readiness. Now what do you recommend for this customer? Well, for one, go back and re-test that location – that’s going to give you some more data and help ensure this wasn’t a one-off problem. And then 2), look at your operational readiness. Optional to provide: Specific recommendations we gave • Give the customer the option to group items into one delivery • Consider changing the messaging for the 7-day pickup window. Offer the users with delayed pickup the option to switch to delivery or extend the 7-day pickup window • Fix the discrepancies for why the website is not updating in real-time with pickup/delivery time changes • Learn why notifications were not up to day and why some customers did not receive them • Add an option to create an account at the checkout stage
- Define your assumptions prior to mapping the journey -- Forrester Launch and test MVP journeys, and scale up functionality and complexity over time -- Forrester Stress test the journey with different scenarios and personas – including edge cases -- Applause Take an iterative approach (test and learn, and test again) – Applause Ensure you are prepared to act on feedback you collect -- Forrester