Through a series of in-depth interviews with a mix of journalists, analysts, and NGOs in the US, UK and Netherlands we documented a large collection of recent and actual Customer Journeys. The recurring patterns in these stories, identified in the analysis, have been translated into a set of personas, each consisting of a rich profile description and a few typical aggregated customer journeys.

The conversations with the external stakeholders were complemented with interviews with key internal experts within Ahold. As professionals in Corporate Communication, Investor Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility they represent important ‘touch points’ for external stakeholders, either through face to face contact or phone and email. Their interaction can be one of the key aspects in the overall customer journey, just as the online platform can be. These individual touch points can all be ‘moments of truth’ that make or break the service experience.

The development of an online communication strategy cannot be done in isolation from these ‘offline’ touch points. They all need to fit together into a smooth and integrated service delivery. So one of the main research purposes was to develop a holistic vision on how the corporate website connects to the wider context of Ahold’s corporate communication.

By empathising with key external stakeholders, Ahold can look at their corporate service offering from an ‘outside-in’ perspective, validate their current communication strategy and innovate their future strategy. The insights from the stakeholders research provide a useful sounding board for this.

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To provide for informative as well as inspiring research outputs, we worked with a probe package (sent out to the participants in advance of the interviews) and with a large scale insight map annotating the stages of the decision making process from the perspectives of the various target audiences involved.

A broad range of useful insights have been derived from this first exploratory study – later in the development process more in-depth studies focusing on specific aspects may follow. The collaboration between the various parties involved has also been quite special. In the true spirit of iterative co-creation we regularly got together in workshops, where we exchanged our concurrent insights, ideas and early concepts. Apart from THNK and STBY, Lava is working on the brand identity and visual style, with LBi Lost Boys developing the next release of the online platform. All very experienced and knowledgable experts in their fields, and all a real pleasure to work with.

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Bespoke methodology for each project

We design a bespoke project for each situation and environment we’re asked to research. We use a wide range of tools that allow us to consistently deliver intimate and resonant insights. We might use film, making a series of short documentaries that explore and document the lives and interests of particular people. We might use a series of in-depth interviews as the basis for developing personas, clustering together the themes we uncover into easily recognisable groups. Or we might run a user-lab or workshop, inviting people to attend our studio in order to explore new service concepts via a range of interactive exercises.

What we don’t do is reduce people’s lives down to surveys or questionnaires. We prefer to deliver materials that are engaging, and present insights into people’s everyday lives that truly get to the heart of what defines an experience. We don’t think traditional market-research is capable of doing this, nor do we believe that research should take place in isolation of the overall design and implementation process.

Guidance on how to implement the insights and ideas

In fact, our projects often involve providing guidance to service providers and design teams who want to use the results to inform and inspire their innovation processes. We’ve established long-term relationships with a number of clients, and we’ve helped some of them reorientate their research activities around the service design principles we incorporate into our work. These partnerships have in many instances extended over multiple projects; we don’t just deliver results, we build relationships and provide expertise and support in the long-term.

We aim to deliver a holistic solution that generates insights, provokes innovation, and assists implementation. Each of these stages is crucial in ensuring that services are connected with the lives of the people using them.

Still not sure what we do? Try downloading one of the following articles:

Service Design – Visualising Future Solutions tells you a bit more about the field of service design,
Design Research – Inspiring Research with the Principles of Design explains a bit more about the design research methodologies we use in our work.

1. Stakeholder Research in Food & Retail for Ahold In collaboration with LBi Lost Boys, STBY recently conducted a...
2. Mobility, Cars and Refueling Experiences What do people care about in terms of mobility, and...
3. Defining ‘Smart’: Using Video to Explore Smartphone Usage   Do people in different countries have different ideas as...

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2. Say yes to the mess! For 'The week of Service Design' on Molblog, the online...
3. Stakeholder Research in Food & Retail for Ahold In collaboration with LBi Lost Boys, STBY recently conducted a...

By spending time and interacting with potential users of new interactive services, we learn a lot about their habits, preferences, needs and concerns. This knowledge can be crucial for the successful development of innovative concepts for interactive services. Ethnographic studies offer rich data that allow empathic understanding of real-life consumer experiences. Contributing from the perspective of the consumer, our research is complementary to the perspectives of the design, enginering and marketing experts who are collaborating in concept and development teams.

1. Say yes to the mess! For ‘The week of Service Design’ on Molblog, the online...
2. Say yes to the mess! For 'The week of Service Design' on Molblog, the online...
3. Stakeholder Research in Food & Retail for Ahold In collaboration with LBi Lost Boys, STBY recently conducted a...

STBY has developed a unique method to explore and communicate the elusive, inconsistent fabric of everyday life by using video and engaging in a dialogue with the participants in a research. Design documentaries investigate the opposites, paradoxes and ambiguities that are part of everyday life. They inform and inspire concept developers by offering rich insights into the often messy routines of consumers. We have found that this can be far more effective than the clean and simplified consumer profiles based on marketing statistics that are so often the basis for design briefs.

Image above:

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Learn from the leading edge of your customers where the most interesting opportunities to improve your service offering are. More and more companies ackowledge that the customer is becoming the dominant reference point for strategy and innovation. Where better to start than with the innovators among your customers? Based on ethnographic methodologies such as contextual inquiry we visit lead users at their work or their homes to find out what their needs are, and possibly what suggestions they might have for solutions to meet these needs.

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Immerse yourself in the service experiences of your customers, identify new opportunities for innovation or discuss your service concept ideas with a sample of lead users.

In a bespoke one- or two-day programme we facilitate a lively encounter between your team and a selection of people from your target group. Through a series of well-prepared interactive assignments the participants explore the current and future service experiences of your customers. Your team will be able to closely observe these experiences and build up a deeper understanding of motivations, barriers and unmet needs by engaging in empathic conversations with your customers.

Our studios in central London and central Amsterdam are perfectly situated to host these Service Experience Labs. In London we are close to Liverpool Street station, so very easy to reach, and in the immediate surrounding of both an upmarket business environment and a buzzing creative area. In Amsterdam we are based at Herengracht, within easy reach from Amsterdam Central Station. Both locations have many buzzing streets and venues around, ideal for service safaris and service prototype testing. Of course we can also facilitate service experience labs with your customers at other locations.

The Service Experience Labs are also suitable for teams that wish to familiarise themselves with the service design approach of engaging with customers in an early stage of innovation projects. In a full-day programme we facilitate an exploration of the essential stages of immersion, insight creation and idea generation. The programme will be customised to fit the objectives and prior knowledge of your team members.

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In close collaboration with Radarstation, STBY conducted a qualitative consumer research for Sony, exploring opportunities for new service concepts beyond their traditional market. The client team from the Sony Design Center in Tokyo was keen to ascertain how external user research in the early stages of a service design process can guide the identification of user needs and idea generation for new service concepts.

Throughout the process of preparing the research methodology, recruiting the research participants, running the User Lab, clustering the documentation, generating the insights, identifying the opportunities and exploring the concept ideas, we were in close contact with the client team. Every step in the process has been documented and discussed, often through multi-point skype meetings and with excellent mediation by Akemi Tazaki.

For the data collection we used both video (to auto-document personal reflections) and visual probes (to guide conversations in pairs and facilitate ad hoc note taking). We gathered a very rich collection of research materials. These have been shared with the client from an early stage in the project through a bespoke project blog.

Our long history of collaborating with Radarstation enabled us to fully integrate the research and design strands in the project. Using bespoke research materials enabled effective elicitation of consumer insights, and consultation of the consolidated research data catered for the grouding of ideas for new services.

1. Mobility, Cars and Refueling Experiences What do people care about in terms of mobility, and...
2. Stakeholder Research in Food & Retail for Ahold In collaboration with LBi Lost Boys, STBY recently conducted a...

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