CHALLENGE:

I usually generate ideas and use cases for our SaaS product to improve offline retail’s

customer experience. Improving customer experience can be done by solving the pain points which  are already listed in retail niche websites and by simply finding and improving the underperforming  areas within the retail business, but the existing tech giants and our competitors has already started  solving those problems and we are little late to the market. So, here my challenge is to find the  unarticulated needs of customers in their store journey and improvements in the business part of  the retail that are not yet taken care by our competitors or anyone who is serving the retail market.

SELECTION:

Most of the time innovative ideas come while we discuss with someone, or brainstorm with

group of people. As mentioned in our video lecture, input from all the involved stakeholders are  needed to address this challenge. I had access to different kind of retail customers like high earning  customers, middle class customers, people who frequently shop and who hates shopping, people  with age ranging from 21-46, people who shop only for themselves and who shops for the entire  family, and my product developing colleagues, who can actually take part in the visualization process  and some of the retail business owners whom I can interview. Since all the involved stake holders  were available I chose VISUALIZATION tool to address my challenge.

APPLICATION:

Before applying the visualization I collected all the available data and its insights by doing

secondary research and prepared few open ended questions for the participants. An overview of the  challenge were given to the participants, then as mentioned in the video lecture I started drawing  the customer journey on my white board step by step and in each step I started asking those  questions to all the participants.

Interesting thing was I got many different views and suggestions for the same situation of a

customer in the customer journey. For example when I asked the participants, how they will select a  particular product in a shop? following views came out,

  I will ask sales person for suggestion.

  I will search in internet for reviews.

  I will never listen to the sales person, since he can try to sell old stock to me

  I will usually take my friends with me while shopping and will decide based on their  suggestion

  I will just select whatever I like, and many more views like this.

While drawing the customer journey, participants actually found many missed touch points  in the customer journey and started leading the brain storming session for me.

INSIGHT:

Important insight gained by doing visualization is that, customer’s expectations have nothing

to do much with the ambience part of the business to improve their experience, customer  expectations are mostly depended at technology level and service level. Customers expect offline  retailers to provide most of the services that actually online retailers provide. But in India the offline  retail giants do not have the required technological infrastructure to provide these services. After  looking at the retailers in countries like US, Australia and parts of Europe, Indian retailers has started  embracing technology to improve the customer experience. Logistics and sales force efficiency are  the areas to concentrate on to improve the customer experience. Couple of other insights gained  from the process are that retail industry around the world are betting big on technologies like  Bigdata, IOT and VR and using these technologies  retailers can actually discover the customer  behaviour to improve the customer experience

This whole process actually made me think about the challenge not only from the customer

point of view or retailer’s point of view, but also from the people’s point of view who give various  business services to these retailers and also to the customers, they may be common for both  customers and retailers or they may not be common between these two.

APPROACH:

What can be done differently with the visualization approach is that, instead of doing it in a

room at home or at office, we should do it in the place where we will be implementing the ideas. For  example in my case, instead of doing it in my office, I can do it in any of the big retail shops, The  reason behind this is to that the stake holders to the live environment which will excite their mind  more than when we do visualization in conference room and components of the business will also  be present which I personally consider as a non-living stake holder and simply the presence of it  during the process can give valuable inputs.


CHALLENGE : I usually generate ideas and use cases for our SaaS product to improve offline retail ’s customer experience . Improving customer experience can be done by solving the pain points which are already listed in retail niche websites and by simply finding and improving the underperforming areas within the retail business , but the existing tech giants and our competitors has already started solving those problems and we are little late to the market . So , here my challenge is to find the unarticulated needs of customers in their store journey and improvements in the business part of the retail that are not yet taken care by our competitors or anyone who is serving the retail market . SELECTION : Most of the time innovative ideas come while we discuss with someone , or brainstorm with group of people . As mentioned in our video lecture , input from all the involved stakeholders are needed to address this challenge . I had access to different kind of retail customers like high earning customers , middle class customers , people who frequently shop and who hates shopping , people with age ranging from 21 - 46 , people who shop only for themselves and who shops for the entire family , and my product developing colleagues , who can actually take part in the visualization process and some of the retail business owners whom I can interview . Since all the involved stake holders were available I chose VISUALIZATION tool to address my challenge . APPLICATION : Before applying the visualization I collected all the available data and its insights by doing secondary research and prepared few open ended questions for the participants . An overview of the challenge were given to the participants , then as mentioned in the video lecture I started drawing the customer journey on my white board step by step and in each step I started asking those questions to all the participants . Interesting thing was I got many different views and suggestions for the same situation of a customer in the customer journey . For example when I asked the participants , how they will select a particular product in a shop ? following views came out ,  I will ask sales person for suggestion .  I will search in internet for reviews .  I will never listen to the sales person , since he can try to sell old stock to me  I will usually take my friends with me while shopping and will decide based on their suggestion  I will just select whatever I like , and many more views like this . While drawing the customer journey , participants actually found many missed touch points in the customer journey and started leading the brain storming session for me . INSIGHT : Important insight gained by doing visualization is that , customer ’s expectations have nothing to do much with the ambience part of the business to improve their experience , customer expectations are mostly depended at technology level and service level . Customers expect offline retailers to provide most of the services that actually online retailers provide . But in India the offline retail giants do not have the required technological infrastructure to provide these services . After looking at the retailers in countries like US , Australia and parts of Europe , Indian retailers has started embracing technology to improve the customer experience . Logistics and sales force efficiency are the areas to concentrate on to improve the customer experience . Couple of other insights gained from the process are that retail industry around the world are betting big on technologies like Bigdata , IOT and VR and using these technologies retailers can actually discover the customer behaviour to improve the customer experience This whole process actually made me think about the challenge not only from the customer point of view or retailer ’s point of view , but also from the people ’s point of view who give various business services to these retailers and also to the customers , they may be common for both customers and retailers or they may not be common between these two . APPROACH : What can be done differently with the visualization approach is that , instead of doing it in a room at home or at office , we should do it in the place where we will be implementing the ideas . For example in my case , instead of doing it in my office , I can do it in any of the big retail shops , The reason behind this is to that the stake holders to the live environment which will excite their mind more than when we do visualization in conference room and components of the business will also be present which I personally consider as a non - living stake holder and simply the presence of it during the process can give valuable inputs .