KINGFISHER

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Kingfisher Plc embarked upon a transformational program across all of its banners such as B&Q, Screwfix, Castorama and Brico Depot. to create a customer proposition that would span both digital and stores, and support the customers through each part of their journey and the mindset they would be in.

I was part of the team that supported the group program by designing frictionless service experiences that reflectes what the customers looking for Speed, Convenience and Trust.

E2E Value Propositions

The work we did in the CX team was important not just because of its breadth and strategic significance but also because it recalibrated the way people looked at solutions and propositions.

We championed the ethos of ‘always start with why’ in a culture that was obsessed with ‘what’ from the onset.

I worked with the team to organise empathy workshops and place customer insights at the heart of every project, so that we could all put ourselves in the shoes of the customers we were solving for first.

Another important aspect was to take stock of the services and capabilities that already existed and then build from it. I created an extensive As-Is map of all the services that existed across all business unites of Kingfisher.

I also did an extensive competition research and then used this As-Is map, customer and market insights to create the north start ‘To-Be’ state of services for the new concept store that was being developed, GoodHome by B&Q.

I also worked with my team of service designers and researchers to create customer value propositions, customer journeys and service blueprints for several services like Aftersales, Installation, Access to Products (delivery) and also worked on creating a case for repositioning the customer contact centre as a service and value proposition rather than just a cost centre.

I worked not only on designing the services and creating customer journeys, but also created detailed functional requirement matrices, and also created the business and value cased of the services we were working on

During these projects, I was able to bring together people from many different departments and levels together on a journey which went from understanding the customer all the way to the creation of short term and long-term roadmaps and functional requirements. I worked cross-functionally with many parts of the business, from research to solution architecture to finance to logistics all the way to store colleagues.

CX Design Ways of Working

Design thinking and service design, the pillars on which the newly formed CX team stood were new concepts for Kingfisher. A large part of our work was to marry innovation and business as usual, and it was primordial that we worked with the rest of the business extensively. We ran the risk of alienating the rest of the business and losing credibility and being looked at as the pretentious bunch.

We were clear about the fact that our team wasn’t going to operationalise the projects we were designing so we brought the teams who would, on the journey from the outset.

I helped create our core 10-step methodology which consisted of the following steps:

Brief - Kick-off - Insights & Benchmarking - Customer Journey Mapping — North Star -

Service Definition & Value Case - Gap Analysis – Functional Requirements - Risks & Dependencies – Roadmap - Handover

I worked with my Service Design Lead and Director to come up with ways of working for our unit that would not only optimise our workflow and enable the best customer outcome but would also help up bring the rest of the business and stakeholders on the journey with us.

We created the concept of 6-week design sprints, which had dedicated time for activities and clearly scored out the RACI matrix and pointed out where we needed collaboration from which stakeholder and at what level. We ensured that stakeholders didn’t feel ‘used and discarded’ and made sure the work was cross-pollinating and cross-functional and helped everyone involved.

We even successfully ran hybrid workshops with off-site teams before it became the new normal.

Part of my role here was to create value cases and ensure the quantitative aspects of the business were being catered to in the design work our team did.