SPECSAVERS Customer Service Sytem (S.C.S.S.)

Designing a new model for the progression of customers through an in-store experience at a leading high-street optometrists' practice.

Challenge

The in-store system utilised by staff at a prominent UK-based optician had been developed in 2005. It enabled personnel to execute fundamental tasks, but its efficacy was declining due to an antiquated user interface and a technologically obsolete underlying system (which was scheduled for decommissioning and replacement with a more sustainable, cloud-based solution in Azure).

BJSS assisted the client in formulating an approach and framework to deliver digital, user-centric customer experiences across 10 diverse markets worldwide. This initiative entailed the implementation of novel methodologies for employees across multiple functions.

The client's store revenue was critically linked to the time it took a customer to complete their end-to-end journey, from arrival at the store to completion of their eye test (and dispensing of products, if applicable) along with their overall in-store experience. The systems and IT supporting this journey were found to be essential to achieving a satisfactory customer throughput and retaining customers through positive experiences and ease of system usage.

Developing a global design system for the client was key to ensuring a consistent design approach especially when we have multiple design and delivery teams working on the same product concurrently.

What we did

Discovery and research

• The customer arrived for an appointment that had been booked in advance.
• They were greeted and checked in by a colleague using the system. An optician then assessed the customer, using the same system to record clinical data against their record.
• The customer was finally processed via the point-of-sale software to take payment, at which point the colleague could progress to the next customer.

It was also noted that store colleagues (users) had developed a number of workarounds to account for the poor usability that had been incorporated into the legacy system. The following were included, although not limited to:

• The circumvention of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements.
• The transposition of customer data from one component of the service to another across disparate system instances.
• The inscription of customer data on physical paper to facilitate the transition of a customer from the retail, to the clinical, to the dispensing components of the in-store journey.

The aforementioned instances resulted in an augmentation of the time required to execute fundamental tasks. Consequently, they became a pivotal performance indicator for the efficacy of our proposed solution.

Translating research into a strategy

The research indicated that the solution must address the following points:

• Be browser/cloud-based – the legacy system was loaded onto each device individually, which made maintaining and updating it a significant organisational challenge.Adhere to WCAG2.0 accessibility standards as closely as possible.
• Work on various existing in-store hardware, which included touch screen devices from 2005, second edition 1024 iPads and mouse/keyboard-driven desktops using a variety of browsers.
• Adhere to client digital brand guidelines.
• Consider the learned behaviours of store colleagues to reduce the necessity (and associated change management costs) for them to learn how to use a brand new system.
• Be robust enough to be deployed globally, in multiple languages
• Strike a balance between incorporating recent advances in emerging technology and design best practice, while still allowing for a level of recognition of established user behaviours
• Accommodate the contextual circumstances surrounding a store colleague’s interactions with a customer’s in-store journey - while many customers would follow a predictably linear journey, the need to begin processing a customer at any point in the journey in an asynchronous manner was also a key requirement.

Design and testing

The BJSS design team then proceeded to create clickable prototypes of the proposed journey in Axure, which were subsequently utilised by in-store colleagues to further enhance and iterate the customer journey. Where feasible, senior stakeholders were invited to participate in these sessions, with the aim of offering them a deeper understanding of the practical experiences and challenges faced by their store colleagues. This approach proved instrumental in expediting the approval of numerous key design decisions.

The development of service blueprints for the complex, multi-channel customer experience was a key aspect of the project, and the articulation of design principles was undertaken to ensure consistency and clarity across component features such as typefaces, colours, and use of logos.

The existing style guide, which was predominantly focused on offline marketing, was found to be inadequately prepared for online implementation.

Consequently, BJSS recommended the implementation and maintenance of a digital design system that was sensitive to the client's brand requirements, whilst optimising them for accessibility and usability. The implementation of this system was seen as a strategic opportunity for the organisation, offering the potential to standardise their online brand with far greater efficacy.

The design system was then employed to deliver high-fidelity design assets to the delivery teams using Sketch and Abstract.

BJSS documented consistent ways of working and processes, implemented agile best practice, and developed several initial wireframes for users, with a specific focus on consistency, alignment across multiple suppliers and teams, and upskilling the client team.

BJSS implemented teams of designers across several multi-disciplinary, multi-supplier teams. Each team was assigned distinct components of the in-store journey, yet they employed varied methodologies and were frequently not co-located, impeding effective collaboration and the consistent delivery of service design and -delivery.

BJSS deployed teams of designers across several multi-disciplinary, multi-supplier teams. Each team was tasked with delivering separate parts of the in-store journey, but they all had different ways of working and were often not co-located, making collaboration and consistent service design/delivery difficult.

In order to address this issue, BJSS collaborated with the client to develop, document, and implement/integrate service design best practice and user experience functions into agile product teams within complex, multi-supplier landscapes.

The outcome of this process was a far more streamlined, frictionless design to development funnel that had a net positive impact on overall delivery velocity.

A view of the in-store sales experience.

My role

In my capacity as a consultant at SPARCK/BJSS, I collaborated with both design and delivery team members on a permanent basis. My role was that of Lead Designer. The responsibilities entailed:

Outcomes

Following the conclusion of the Discovery/Design phases (equivalent to Alpha and Beta), BJSS proceeded with Live delivery, achieving an increase in appointment bookings, a reduction in no-shows, enhanced in-store customer engagement, and elevated customer satisfaction.