SK-II’s Super-Powered Assistant
Role Lead UX Designer
Deliverable iPad app for sales assistants of SK-II
Launched in Japan and China
Impact Monthly average of 100,000 impressions a month
Overview of Product
SK-II’s Super-Powered Assistant is a tablet app that helps SK-II’s Beauty Counsellors (aka sales assistants) be efficient and supported in their day-to-day tasks.
TLDR
A summary of processes done on this project:
- Contextual observation in-store to find out about the Beauty Counsellors’ behaviours.
- User Interviews with Beauty Counsellors and managers to find out the problems they are facing
- Using these insights to ideate on features.
- Prioritizing features.
- Adding delight.
- Design.
- Prototype.
- Usability Tests.
- Iterate.
The Ask
Converting the entire ecosystem digitally. Before, they used a lot of pen and paper that went back and forth between the Beauty Counsellors, their managers, the department store, etc.
The Goal
- Maximising the Beauty Counsellor’s time in-store
- Motivating them to reach their sales target and tasks
- Supporting their conversations with the consumers
Problem Statement
Beauty Counsellors should feel motivated, equipped, supported, and confident to easily achieve their day-to-day tasks and give their best to the consumers that come through the store. Saving time and effort on their daily tasks to focus on counselling sessions with their consumers would increase their trust, leading to more sales.
The Big Idea
While, of course, the product must be functional to make BCs life easier, we are also determined to add a little fun to help BCs fall in love with the product and be excited to use it every day.
Users and Audience
3 groups of users will interact with this product. Hence, there are 3 facets to the interface.
The primary users are the Beauty Counsellors themselves.
The secondary users are their managers.
The tertiary users are the consumers (Young Executives, women in their 20s-30s), who will be guided by the Beauty Counsellors and will not directly interact with the product.
Research
As this is a completely new product, we had to rely entirely on observation and interviews to determine the problems BCs face in-store.
Research (Observation)
The pilot app started in Japan before expanding into China and the Rest of The World, so we had contractors in Japan to observe the BCs from 3 different outlets for 2 weekdays and 2 days over the weekend (of 2 different timings each. We gave them a to-do list of what to look out for and recorded their observations on consumers’ and BCs’ behaviours.
The reason for this was to make sure that we covered different footfalls in the store. The busy periods (lunchtime on a weekday and the weekend) when SK-II’s consumers will visit on their break. And also the lull periods when the BCs have some downtime.
Key Takeaways from Observations
The consumers fall under two categories: existing consumers who know what they want (grab-and-go) and consumers (both new and existing) who take their time to speak to a BC. There is a correlation between time spent with the BCs and the number of sales. There is also a correlation between consumers doing a skin scan and the number of sales. Consumers generally look to the BCs for skincare and not just the specific technical details of SK-II’s products.
Opportunity: Better equip the BCs with skincare knowledge and trends so that consumers will look to SK-II as their skincare guru, as much as YouTube or Instagram influencers.
Their current counselling process with consumers does not have the function of sharing the skin results on the spot. The consumers take pictures of their skin results from the BC’s tablet in-store.
Opportunity: Sharing information from tablet to consumer’s mobile seamlessly
Research (Interviews)
Unfortunately for us (but also fortunately for the employees), SK-II has very strict regulations to protect their employees, so we had to work with their in-house team to speak to their BCs with our guide. We gave them a script and recorded their interviews. With their interviews being in Japanese, we had a translator transcribe them into English. We also spoke to the translator to extract some of the feelings expressed by the BCs that could not have been read on paper. There was some back and forth for us to dig deeper into the BC's thoughts, behaviours, wants, and needs.
Key Takeaways from the Interviews
BCs fill in documents using pen and paper, which goes to the managers, then to department stores, and managers and back.
Opportunity: While we couldn’t include the department stores in their ecosystem, we could digitize these documents between the BCs and their managers so that interactions that would take days would be reduced to an hour.
Inventory is a headache because the BCs might get interrupted to speak to a consumer, and resuming the task would mean going back to the start. Some of the inventory is also not located in the same space, so the BCs would have to travel to another part of the department store to check if they have stock for the consumer. The paper document recording all the inventory is placed on the physical cupboard, so the BCs have no access while in-store.
Opportunity: Digitizing this process would mean BCs can always access inventory numbers, and the app can automatically deduct the number of products after a sale.
During lull periods, BCs who have completed their daily tasks stand around and chat, or if they’re alone on their shift, they get bored as they are not allowed to use their mobile phones on the counter.
Opportunity: Maximise their lull periods with a repository of videos and articles they could learn from. Make learning fun so that it both trains and entertains them. … Entertraining.😏
During the skin counselling session, the BCs would introduce products to help with the consumers’ skin concerns. The layout of this pamphlet is a linear regimen from facial wash to toner and moisturiser, etc.
This was clunky and not personalised at all.
Opportunity: Since there is a logic to what product will be recommended to them, personalise the results with products in the skin counselling session.
Feature prioritisation
Fusing the clients’ requirements and our research, we prioritised features to work on.
Usability Tests
We gathered their feedback and scrutinized the “Why”, which led to some iterations, testing again, iterating again, and again, and again.
And then we launched! 🚀
We are still learning and iterating post-launch. The team on this project has gotten smaller, but we’re still doing the good work of championing the BCs.
Iteration Example 1
BCs report to Store Managers (SM), and SMs use the app to track how their store(s) are doing. SMs work mostly alone, and their SPA tasks can sometimes be convoluted. For example, an SM plans for the Workshift of each store every month, compared to a BC who uses the app every day. To help SMs use the app independently, we have introduced a new feature called Tooltips.
This feature was rolled out to every user and used as an onboarding tool.
Iteration Example 2
When the pandemic hit, the department stores were closed when Japan was on high alert. To enable Beauty Counsellors and Store Managers to work from home, we created a ‘SPA at Home’ feature. If the iPad isn’t connected to the store’s wifi, or the geolocation isn’t within the store, or it is not during the BC’s assigned shift, the app will prompt users to indicate whether they are in-store or at home. This is because employees should not have access to store and consumer information unless needed. With this feature, even post-pandemic (when life is normal again — I’ve forgotten what normal looks like), BCs can still take the iPad home to learn and plan for their shifts.
The Challenges
Initially, the client wanted the app to track BC's tasks to make sure they were efficient. This seemed too Big Brother-like, and we empathised with the BCs as the product's users. Instead, we pitched a more motivating and supportive app; the copy and animations we recommended were friendlier. We made sure to celebrate their achievements, however minor. The clients loved it, and we pushed it a little further so that the BCs could look at their performance and be motivated even more to make sales. Win-win.
Timeline
5 months to launch with 100 Beauty Counsellors and get their feedback, 8 months to fully launch throughout all SK-II Counters in Japan.
Still iterating as we learn about the needs and behaviours of Beauty Counsellors 2 years later. Expanding into SK-II China in 2022.
Key Learnings
This project taught me to be flexible and to pivot when needed. For example, Japan was badly affected when CoVID-19 hit the world in 2020. Japan was in a state of emergency, and department stores were shut. To help SK-II support their Beauty Counsellors who would have been out of work, we created SPA-at-Home. This was designed so that the Beauty Counsellors could take their iPads home and receive news, go through training and keep them motivated.
The Results: 100% adoption throughout SK-II’s counters in Japan. SPA is also used for onboarding new Beauty Counsellors.
Fun Fact #1
Here’s a complete user flow of the entire app. We lovingly call it The Motherflow, and I’m proud to say I coined that term. 🥳
Fun Fact #2
There’s a patent with our names on it. 🥳
I realised this was a long post, and I had to force myself to stop because this only scratched the surface. Everything about this project is exciting to me, so I had to prioritize the features of this post. (Ahem, UX joke).
If you still have questions, want to learn more, or want to grab a coffee, you can contact me at hello@missmasturah.com.
