Curating Choices
Design Research, Service Design
Source: Foxtrot
Customers struggled to make a decision at Foxtrot because there were too many curated items to choose from without staff assistance, and they just left. We modified our minds and developed a bundle to limit their options.
Client: Foxtrot (An upscale convenience store based in Chicago, planning to open 50 new stores in the United States by 2024.)
Goal: Create a new service model for Foxtrot to introduce a future of shopping and hospitality to their customers
Solution: "Wine plus One," which assists customers in selecting a snack from a curated selection, and "Dinner Special," which assists customers in selecting all necessary ingredients for dinner on a single shelf
Role: Design Researcher, Service Designer
Result: Won the 1st prize among over 30 teams
Team members:
- Jeff Sprague
- Takuya Isogai
Advisor:
- Mark Jones
“Customer 1 - Entered the store twice, looked here and there for someone (staff), stood at the same place for 8-10 mins, went out empty handed.”
- Observation
… my reflections
Too much hospitality doesn't work either.
I wanted to prepare everything for customers as hospitality since too many choices bother customers to make a decision based on the paradox of choice. But customers didn't feel good without any options. So service providers frequently leave options for customers, as evidenced by McDonald's combo menus.
We should be on the same page with a client all the time.
When we started our experiment, we saw new gift boxes with a similar concept at the store. Especially a project manager needs to communicate with a client well to avoid misunderstandings and overlap like in this case. Research practitioners should approach the project manager to grasp what the client is doing and planning, especially if the client's business is rapidly expanding.
We can't ignore visual communication in the experiment.
We focused on learning if our concept worked rather than visual communication throughout the in-store experiment. As a result, customers barely grabbed a box. We would have discussed this with the client in advance to connect a presentation with the client's brand concept while also making it visually appealing.
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