UX research in support of an Ideation Workshop

Assumptions: Customers would like to know where their order is in the order to delivery process to make it easier for them to do business with the client

Methodology: Remote interviews, Contextual inquiry

Discovery

The order-to-delivery process encompasses the process and pain points of production lines, inventory management, and transport logistics, all while trying to keep the customer happy and ensure a delightful customer experience.

To investigate the process, remote interviews were conducted with members of the customer support team, sales force, inventory production team, and logistics team. Contextual inquiries were performed with the logistics team.

Customers were also interviewed remotely. Over 25 individuals were interviewed to define the problem space and identify potential solutions. The order-to-delivery process is quite complex, with multiple moving parts.

Insights

Customer Support Team:

• Customer Support is the linchpin in providing information about order issues
• They are the focal point for client’s customers
  • Customer calls the hotline or sends an email to ask about an order after the 5th business day
  • The customer wants to know where their order is and why it was not delivered on time
• Empowering the Customer Support Team to be more efficient and effective in responding to customer inquiries will:
  • Free up the time Sales, and LSC spends currently chasing order information
  • Allow Sales and LSC to focus on their primary tasks
  • Provide excellent customer service and make it easier to do business with the client

Sales Force:

• Customers call them v. calling Customer Support Team about order inquiries
• They get pulled into order chasing for their customers
• The sales force should be removed completely from chasing the status of orders
• They should be informed of any issues with their customer’s orders, not directly responsible for resolving order issues

Inventory Production Team:

• The primary task is to monitor and schedule inventory production at all client facilities throughout US and Canada and move products to the client distribution facilities.
• The inventory Production Team interacts with Customer Support Team about order inquiries. Much of their valuable time is spent responding to inquiries about product replenishment and availability.
• They receive calls from the Customer Support Team requesting urgent filling of orders. This is a daily occurrence.
• Minimizing the time required to interact with Customer Support Team will allow them to focus on their efforts on their primary tasks

Logistics Team:

• The primary task is to schedule the orders for processing in the client facility and ensure third-party carriers are assigned to orders.
• Logistics Team interacts with the Customer Support Team about order status inquiries and order disputes.
• They do not know when the order was entered into the system. They only see it when it lands in their delivery creation queue.
• They do not have insight into the original order or know if any items were cut.
• Minimizing the time required to interact with Customer Support Team will allow them to focus their efforts on their primary tasks.

Customers:

• Customers want their orders on time and in full
• Customers want the correct products delivered
• Customers are not interested in where their order is in the order-to-delivery process.

Ideation Workshop

The stakeholders were gathered to participate in an ideation workshop.

The goal was to reframe the problem statement. The original problem statement centered on the customer and improving their experience.

The reframed statement centered the customer support team to make it more efficient for them to answer the inbound customer questions and improve the customer’s ordering experience.

The results of the research were presented to reinforce the reframed problem statement.

My Contribution

As the UX Researcher, I developed the discussion guide and conducted the majority of the remote interviews with the users involved in the order-to-delivery process.

To prepare for the Ideation Workshop, I created the personas and empathy maps. I worked with the Service Designer to create the journey maps for the workshop.

To provide some context and build some empathy, I created a six panel comic demonstrating one of the pain points for the users.