01 — OVERVIEW

Not all customers are inherently evil, though the negative interactions of some individuals have garnered them notoriety and various nicknames in the customer service industry — the individuals that ensure the costumer has a smooth and successful interaction on behalf of a company.

What is workpeer?

A conceptual prototype app that empowers retail employees to get recognized for their outstanding contributions and provides them with tools to navigate difficult situations and recover from hostile interactions.

what makes it unique?

Workpeer focuses on the positive interactions of employees’ only (while negative reviews are handled separately) and provides a community driven support system where employees can create support groups and share their experiences.

What were your roles and responsibilities?

Lead facilitation on the project and facilitated ideation sessions
Lead user research and user testing sessions
Overall User Experience

02 — the problem

How can we support employees so they can be recognized for their outstanding contributions and navigate difficult customer interactions?

TL;DR: How can we support employees so they view customers as caring individuals instead of “Karen” individuals? 😉

03 — the process

Identifying the problem space

Empathizing with the user

Mapping the key user flow

Designing a solution prototype

04 — secondary research

Building off secondary research and speaking with working college students, we identified 3 main issues facing employees.

40% said they’ve experienced at least one instance of verbal or threats of physical abuse from a customer in the past.

Outstanding employee contributions often go unnoticed and unappreciated

Customers abandon their attempts to provide positive feedback because the process is either inconvenient or non-existent

05 — WhiteBoarding

Whiteboard activities helped us ideate on the problem space and establish a cohesive shared vision with stakeholders and the team early into the process.

Hill's Activity

05 — hills activities

Hills activities identified key issues that we revisited and developed into features later in the development process.

Hill's Activity

06 — Crazy 8’s

Crazy 8’s pushed us beyond our first ideas to generate a variety of solutions and identify the team’s overlapping ideas.

Crazy 8's

07 — flow charts

Creating user flows for each key issue helped us identify the key actions to address within the app and the main screens to begin chunking out the experience

Employee Flow Chart

Customer Flow Chart

08 — Low-fi Prototypes

Low fidelity prototypes established the foundation of the experience to inspire feedback from stakeholders

09 — high-fi prototypes

High fidelity prototypes created an opportunity to test the apps functionality and encourage feedback from stakeholders.

10 — Customer feedback screens

The process for leaving a review had to be simple and convenient, and reward both parties involved.

QR Code — to bring up the employees profile
Prefilled Prompts — provide a quick way to describe your experience
Give Feedback — lets customers leave a custom message
Rewards — so both parties are mutually benefitted

11 — Employee screen

Employees needed their own personal space to create their own support groups and access to resources to manage difficult customer interactions

Create Profile — Unique profiles to easily identify who you are
Find Support Groups — Easy access to find groups for support
Articles — Gives access to resources for dealing with conflict and difficult interactions
Chat Rooms — Allow members to share their experiences

12 — reflections

Reflecting on the process and project outcomes, what’s next and what I’d do differently.

Next steps

Flush out existing functionality — As this was just a prototype, the functionality isn't completely flushed out.

Split into two different experiences — It would be better to have both experiences separate from one another.

What would you do differently?

Handle negative reviews separately — Allow them to be used internally for management and staff. It's important to not create a social credit system or workplace competition.

Nobody wants to signup and download another app — I’d probably consider a kiosk for customers to leave feedback instead of an app.

Workpeer — Rewarding customers for positive interactions and empowering employees for their contributions.