Walmart
Designing a Customer Care System
Walmart is a multinational retail corporation known for their wide range of affordable products. As one of the world’s largest retailers, Walmart experiences some of the highest rates of customer service requests in the industry. After speaking with the Walmart team about their experience with their current customer care system, we felt that there was opportunity for improvements that would positively impact the day-to-day work experience for their employees.
Though robust, Walmart’s customer care system can be slow, inefficient and does not offer features customer care associates need to appropriately solve or flag requests.
We believe an intuitive customer care system will enable customer care associates to quickly validate users and provide effective solutions, resulting in high user satisfaction, customer retention, and an increase in overall financial profit.
The objective of the user research was to delve into the following areas:
The Challenge: A considerable amount of time had to be allocated towards discovering the appearance of the customer care system as there was no available access to evaluate the existing Walmart customer care system.
Extensive mixed-methods research was undertaken at the start of the project, which included the examination of 28 articles, 41 survey responses, 11 stores, and 4 interviews. Despite the efforts to post surveys on social media, send individual messages, request to join groups on Facebook and LinkedIn, my accounts were temporarily frozen.
Conducted a survey of 41 customer care associates through both online and in-person.
The findings revealed that access to customer care associates was restricted, and many expressed apprehension about sharing information regarding their organizations. The following were among the most significant findings:
During a period of 5 days, visited 7 stores and spent a combined total of 8 hours observing customer care associates, customer interactions, and processes as part of the ethnographic research. Despite several challenges being faced, including being asked to leave Walmart stores multiple times, our efforts were persisted for the success of the project.
Some of the key takeaways were:
Limited access to customer care associates and their reluctance to disclose information about their work experience due to job security concerns posed an unexpected challenge for the project. After extensive recruitment efforts and the assurance of anonymity, we were able to interview 4 associates.
Some of the key takeaways were:
Following the collection of data through methods such as ethnographic observation, secondary research, interviews, and surveys, next task was to synthesize the information and extract meaningful insights.
Using an affinity diagram, sorted our data into categories, identified recurring patterns and themes, and attained a deeper understanding of our user.
The full version of the Affinity Diagram can be accessed by clicking on the button on the side.
By creating an empathy map, a comprehensive overview of our users and their experiences was obtained. The pain points and challenges faced by customer care associates were identified using this tool, which helped to inform the design process and ensured that their needs were effectively addressed by our solution.
The full version of the Empathy Map can be accessed by clicking on the button on the side.
To better understand the needs of our target audience and to guide our design decisions, user persona was developed based on the insights obtained from the user research. This persona represents the typical user and encapsulates the goals, behaviors, attitudes, and pain points.
By utilizing this persona, a user-centered approach was adopted in the design process, leading to the creation of a solution that effectively addresses the users' requirements.
Storyboard was created to visualize the user journey and potential pain points to facilitate a deeper understanding of the user's perspective and to identify areas for improvement by utilizing to develop a more intuitive and effective solution for the user.
A thorough evaluation of the market was carried out to gain a comprehensive understanding of the gap that exists.
Retail businesses can avail services and solutions from Toast, Square, Clover, and Lightspeed. Although Clover and Toast are more focused on the restaurant industry, they also provide features and solutions for retail businesses.
Using all these insights, the limitations of the current system were addressed and a minimum viable product was designed to improve the user experience for all customer care associates.Key features that were included are:
User task flow was created that was simple and intuitive, with a focus on a customer being assisted by an associate to return a damaged item.
The flow was initiated on the dashboard, where the validation, scanning, and refund process were navigated through by the associate. The transaction was finalized by the associate, and the dashboard was returned to in order to begin the next request.
With the user's task flow in consideration, the main goal was to create paper sketches of screens that aimed to streamline the process for damaged returns.
Upon completing the paper sketches, the subsequent step entailed translating them into digital sketches. This would facilitate the production of more detailed and refined designs, streamlining collaboration with all stakeholders involved in the project easily.
In the mid-fidelity stage of the design process, the significant adjustments was based on user feedback and usability testing. The primary objective was to create a user flow that was both intuitive and easy to use, with a focus on optimizing the platform's core features.
The initial testing revealed that users anticipated the receipt totals to appear in the bottom right corner of the screen, and the comprehensive list of items could be bewildering. As a result, the proposal was to simplify the content and restructure the layout to comply with industry conventions.
Issue: Users expected to see receipt totals in the bottom right corner.
Recommendation: Realign all content in receipt screen to match industry standards.
During the second round of testing, users expressed a desire for the ability to modify quantities and remove items with greater ease. The suggested solution was to implement a drop-down menu for adjusting quantity, which deemed a more scalable approach.
Issue: Users wanted the option to adjust quantities with minimal steps.
Recommendation: Add quantity drop down so users can adjust and remove.
The style guide is designed to maintain brand consistency of Walmart and improve the user experience. It includes guidelines for layout, navigation, and component design to ensure the interface is easy to use for all users. It enhances the usability and accessibility of the user interface, while also simplifying the development process by providing developers with a clear and uniform reference to follow.
Following two rounds of usability testing, the high-fidelity designs were updated to integrate the feedback received, with a particular focus on:
Throughout this project, I discovered the critical role that a comprehensive and efficient customer care system can play in empowering retail associates to handle a wide range of customer interactions successfully. The project highlighted the importance of designing with the end-user in mind and incorporating features that directly address the challenges faced by associates, ultimately resulting in greater job satisfaction and productivity.
