Rice Quality Improvement
Service Design, Project Management, Stakeholder Management
Source: ANA
Rice didn’t taste good in the business class from Mexico City. We customized our recipes due to geographical challenges, aligned expectations with customers, the airline, and a catering company, and achieved higher customer satisfaction.
Company: All Nippon Airways -the largest airline in Japan with 75 international routes
Goal: Investigate why rice didn’t taste good, and create a better recipe to cook rice in Mexico to go beyond a customer's expectations.
Solution: Created visualized procedures, prepared necessary equipment for the Mexican environment, invited Mexican chefs and catering company staff to a focus group interview to know customer needs, and conducted a regular quality inspection.
Role: Design strategist, Project Manager
Result: We received no negative feedback about rice from Business class customers. The closer relationship with the catering company improved the rice quality and the quality of other meals.
Customers are reporting that the rice in business class tasted bad, despite the fact that the airline was Japanese.
– General Manager, All Nippon Airways
Reflection
Deep discussions for multicultural understanding: Everyone has their own set of standards that they rarely question. We may be aware of the differences, but we frequently need to communicate, observe and have doubts.
Small steps toward a larger impact: Improved rice quality influenced the presentation of Japanese in-flight meals or menu selection. Showing how seriously we take this project to improve customer satisfaction resulted in great teamwork among stakeholders, including sales representatives and frontline airport employees.
