Service Design in Royal college of art
In RCA’s first project, also known as the Icebreaker project, aims to help students’ mutual acquaintance and warm up for future courses.
Introduction
Tesco is a multinational retailer of groceries and daily essentials in the UK, known as its affordability and convenience. It stands as a leading position in the UK for its over 20 million members of Clubcard and an extensive coverage of physical stores, making it the third-largest retailer globally.
1. Data Collection
Starting with our personal experience of Tesco’s shopping process. Recording the emotions, behaviours and the pain points before, during and after shopping.
Customers are attracted to competitive Clubcard member prices that marked with yellow labels. Although people obtain membership in order to get a cheaper price, when they compare to other retailers like Lidl, ASDA or big competitor Sainsbury’s customers will notice they offer better deals.
This confuses consumers and leads to low loyalty. Some of them only choose Tesco during discounts or due to distance, while others distrust Tesco products because of unsatisfactory qualities.
Business Aspect Investigation
Attempts to analyze Tesco’s business process based on past work experience faced challenges due to a lack of objective evaluations in readily available annual reports, news, and interviews. Our team only could resorted to making assumptions to understand their business service model.
We identified Tesco’s core business philosophy from numerous reports, emphasizing certain keywords that almost represent Tesco and the value they intend to bring to customers.
Interviews
We collected some feedback from young generations, especially students, about their shopping behaviors and thoughts and found out varying perspectives on the balance between price and quality. After that, we listed few emotional terms used during consumption for considering what kind of behaviours could evoke them. We analyzed identify key goals we hoped customers would achieve.
Convergence
Initially we focusing on Tesco’s internal operational model, including various business departments, collaborations with diverse external vendors, and competitive pricing. We found limited information on pain points in managing the Clubcard system, leading to reliance on assumptions.
Guided by Professor Richard’s advice, we eventually redirected focus to the users. Interviews revealed low loyalty to retailers regardless of age. Elder individuals associating low prices with unstable quality, prompting them to opt for retailers with better-quality products.
Moreover, the Clubcard points system failed to capture the interest of many customers. In order to obtain coupons, customers will go through a slow and exhausting accumulation process. What’s worse is that points calculated in single digits per purchase and settled every three months, made the process slow and difficult, adding to the challenge.
Identifying Opportunities
Tesco has implemented a membership system since 1996, which was a very pioneering strategy at the time. So we began to think: is there any future approach in modern times that is beyond the times, innovative, and no one has thought before?
In the final insights, the team decided on three solution directions
- Make good use of local stores — Tesco has a large number of stores
- Let customers see the value of membership — members currently cannot see the benefits of Clubcard
- Let everything enter people’s lives naturally — People don’t like to have their behavior changed, but we can guide it.
Introducing, the retail vending machine of the future! !
Two points of product concept
- The vending machine is used to achieve remote ordering, which makes it convenient for companies to set up charging points and customers to purchase items anytime and anywhere. You can even use VR shopping to view the status of goods on the shelves.
- Community-based subscriptions, based on the first point, can be shared with families or co-residents.
Conclusion
Since I started working, I rarely discuss with other designers for some personal ideas. Because everyone is on campus, their ideas are wild and unconstrained, and we also work hard to rationalize these ideas. I cherish this opportunity to listen to other people’s ideas and try to strike a balance, and also re-examine my own strengths and weaknesses in teamwork.
Reporting on stage has always been my weakness, let alone speaking in a second language. I would be so anxious that I would feel sick to my stomach. But I am very grateful to my teammates. They rehearsed with me and encouraged me when I got stuck on my words. Give me psychological support with nods and smiles, so that everything can be expressed smoothly.
