My Design Thinking Tool: Storytelling

Challenge

I work in a Customer Insights and Analytics team and we were tasked with coming up with a  retail customer loyalty model. In Nigeria, the concept of customer loyalty in the financial  industry is rare. This meant that we had insufficient local data to work with. After going the  route of a survey, we had gotten additional information to come up with a model. The  challenge now was translating our findings into a model that would easily understood by the  retail stakeholders.

Selection

It was not hard deciding on adopting the visualization tool because of its ability to convey  messages with imagery. Images, when combined with a little literature had proven to be  powerful in historical tasks I handled.

Application

To drive home my point in the most simplistic method, I utilized a combination of SmartArt  graphics and icons from google. Smart art was effective in describing the elements that  determine the value of a good loyalty scheme and used relatable icons to points and  rankings. A good example is the use of a ladder to present the different cadres of customers  based on accrued loyalty points.

Insight & Approach

The presentation was certainly insightful as the audience were engaged and understood the  overall idea enough to request some modifications. However, I learnt that I could have  incorporated a bit of storytelling by illustrating the emotional experiences a customer would  go through from awareness to finally redeeming the points. That I believe, would have  further immersed the audience and, perhaps, trigger some more viable suggestions.

