ReImagined: A Pet Moving Service Experience
According to multiple reports from multiple countries, it is not uncommon to have pet dying during or immediately after airline travel. This is not including lost animals, plus injured animals. In any year, there are hundred of cat and dog deaths linked to transporting pets on planes. This is just one article from theguardian, and feel free to google more on this.
If I had done more research, I’m quite sure two things will happen: 1) I will not travel with my pets, 2) I will still do it but my anxiety level will go up by 300%.
Few months ago, I have had to move two cats across the world. Yes I could just hire a pet moving company but the thought of dishing out thousands of dollar versus a DIY solution for free (not exactly but not paying for the service); it was kinda a no-brainer. Plus, the husband said “It’s easy!”. Mmm okaaayyy… let’s do it ourselves (and use the thousands of $ saved to buy the cats food and toys!
A few too many Google searches and bouncing from one government body to another, finding a certified vet close to us, microchips, vaccinations (but which ones?), travel crates of a fitting size (measure cats), cats’ age (which was hard to define since they were adopted), health certificate from another authority, airline carrier that will take cats (but won’t give confirmed availability until a week before departure), export license, reading umpteen articles (I love to read, BUT…) with still many questions hanging in the air. This pretty much sums up how I felt.
Throughout the experience, it was one hurdle after another. There were many uncertainties and timing to manage. It is a Project Manager’s job, I dare say. Missing any appointment can result in a departure delay altogether, which means rebooking vet visits, export license to be re-applied as it has a short expiry date. Oh same goes for the health certificate!
Even if I managed to get them on board, will they have enough water, what if they are hungry (although I was told they will be too stressed to be hungry), will they freeze (to death)? The shivers just imaging that.
Air travel, in fact, is not just stressful for animals. It can be dangerous (as stated in the beginning of this article), no matter how smooth the landing, timely the departure or friendly the flight attendants. Conditions in the cargo hold of commercial jets are no where near comfortable, much less favourable; temperatures can fluctuate wildly, noise can be tremendous and air pressure can drop significantly, and pets that are checked into this dark space beneath the passenger cabin sometimes die.
Sign… ‘Nuff said.
As a designer, I can’t help but ponder what an ideal pet moving service experience could be and really, it isn’t that crazy hard, but it does require getting the systems (backstage actors) to work together for a much less stressful experience for the users (front stage actors).
FRONT STAGE (refer to illustration above)
- Pet owner goes to a platform to key in (1) 🛫 departure and 🛬 arrival country
- Fill in (2) number of pets 😸😸 and pet(s) information
- It provides all (3) necessary items needed mapped into a timeline 🔔
- Links owner to: (4) recommended airline(s) ✈️, link to airline website to book air ticket
- By entering address, platform (5) 🏥 provides nearest authorised vet clinic for health check, needed vaccinations or medication. It also allows 🗓️ booking the vet based on the recommended date in order to match the timeline.
- Next, it points you to affiliated online pet shops to (6) 🛒 purchase approved travel crates and other accessories needed during travel.
- Travel crates arrive at least 1 month ahead of travel date for pets to familiarize themselves with the container.
- The platform (7) 📢 pushes all appointments and relevant information to pet owner, like how to prepare your pets for travel, which terminal and counters to go, is food needed, is it safe to sedate the pets, etc.
- Owner is asked to (8) 🚕 book a special animal taxi to take them to the airport and from the airport home upon arrival.
- Before flying, owner can see on app (9) 😾😾 where the pets are and a video of what’s going on with them.
- Upon arrival, owner can check on app to (10) know if the pets arrived safely and still alive 🛟 (because it still takes another 30–45mins to arrive at gate).
Side information: We attached our Apple AirTags to each of their crates so we could use our App to track both the crates before we fly and upon landing.
- Owner is notified via app (11) which terminal and belt to collect them.
- Owner also gets (12) 📢 notification that the pet taxi has arrived and is given directions on where the car is waiting.
- ❤️🏠️❤️
BACK STAGE
I attempted to map the backstage actors below to enable the experience described above.
I know I am oversimplifying what will need a lot more moving parts to make this possible but one can start imagining and redesigning this service experience that troubles many, but no one is taking a deeper look into the system and its actors to make this less painful.
I hope you enjoyed reading this experience design exploration, I certainly had fun reimagining an alternative of this pet moving experience to be and it was also rather traumatising to recall what we had to go through.
There are so many opportunities spinning in my mind from the services to the design of the crates to forms design. Perhaps you have other angles to share or discuss. Would love to hear your thoughts!
Final word: For those who are curious, yes, we managed to land safely. All cats and humans survived the journey. The humans never want to move the cats EVER AGAIN, which means the human will never move again in this lifetime.
If you are keen to read about Service Prototyping, here’s an article written by my colleague, Anindya Fitriyanti.
