Kind Baking Company Service Design Review
An end-to-end review on a customer’s journey and touchpoints with a small bakery.
Details
Client
Kind Baking Company
Responsibilities
Research and strategy, service designer
People Involved
Customers, Bakers, Business Owner
Project Duration
8 weeks
(June 2023 - August 2023)
Background
Kind Baking Company is a local, small batch bakery that focuses on sourcing quality ingredients from local farmers and businesses. The company recently transitioned from a stall at a farmer’s market to a small storefront location and is working on establishing itself. Kind’s mission is to carry on the tradition of homemade baked goods and the moments they bring, while reducing food waste and educating others on being a conscious consumer.
Objective
Optimizing Kind Baking Company’s business operations, including the storefront, inside signage, transaction flow, website, and marketing materials, by tracking metrics to measure design impact.
Success Metric (preview):
Reduced average transaction duration by 25%
The owner, myself, and the head baker
Service Design Approach
In order to gain clearer insight on multiple customer flows and how these flows interact with one another, I created this blueprint. It provides a clear depiction of both visible and non-visible touch points. Goals of this blueprint include:
Aligning areas of focus
Highlighting current pain points
Identifying which sections can be improved or added upon
Gray - User flow or prop use
Yellow - point of improvement
Green - point of new flow creation
Defining Scope
This matrix shows where attention can be given in order to create high impact benefits for the bakery. For example, resources such as the chalkboard store sign and the menu are items that can be adjusted to generate higher impact while requiring low effort from the bakery’s behalf.
Yellow - point of improvement
Green - point of new flow creation
We can also further break this down to highlight which of these points can directly affect marketing, sales, product, and support sides of Kind Baking Company. This allows for the business to gain clearer insight on when and which department it may want to spend time and money towards.
Using this blueprint and an impact/effort matrix, we identified that the menu can create a positive impact on the marketing, sales, and support teams while also not requiring much effort from them.
Observed Menu Pain Points
Initially, Kind Baking Company had customers enter the bakery and immediately have to look back and forth from the menu printed on the right side of the counter to the selections of baked goods on the left. They had to either guess and make assumptions or ask and wait for the employee to explain everything in detail. This puts pressure on the customer to remember all 15 items that were said to them. I put together this storyboard based on customer-employee observations to depict these interactions:
From these observations and understanding, I decided that the customer’s interaction with the menu could be improved to simplify and ease both customer and employee experiences. Additionally, I felt the menu could use some branding additions to be used on social media.
Original Menu
I also conducted an impromptu card sort with the bakers to see if the categories from that week’s menu could improve the information architecture of the current menu.
Impromptu Card Sort
Based on this data, I had 5 clear categories to reorganize the menu’s structure.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Original Menu:
Menu Redesign:
Improvements
Improved item category names
Added branding to improve brand recognition and professionalism
Used white space to increase readability of pricing
Food Label Addition
In addition to help the customer identify each item listed on the menu, I created food labels to be placed near the corresponding baked good. These cards have Kind Baking Company’s iconic poppy flower on them, have food-allergy information on them, and are laminated for last-minute changes.
Before
After
Improvements
Labels in context of item instead of just on menu
Indications added to cards to show allergy-friendly ingredients. Backs of cards show list to employees for quick reference
Visually separates items on counter, appears less cluttered
Success Metrics and Measurements
Used a stopwatch to track how long it takes to order and complete a transaction without a menu and labels vs. with the menu and labels. Observed the number and type of questions customers ask employees when ordering. The data showed the following:
Reduced average transaction duration by 25%
Reduced number of questions asked per visit by ~50%
Next Steps
Coincidentally, creating these tweaks to the menu also benefitted these user challenges. Not all customers need to ask and discuss the bakery display’s options and prices anymore as this information is more clearly displayed and easier to navigate. These changes overall improve the business’s efficiency by reducing time per sale and allowing for an increase in customers in and out of the door.
Coming back to this matrix, the next task to tackle is packaging/branding. The box on the matrix is green, meaning we could explore adding a new flow to the customer’s experience.
Questions to explore for branding/packaging:
How can the customer’s experience with Kind Baking Company continue even after leaving the bakery storefront?
What small branding additions can we do with an item’s packaging to extend customers’ positive touchpoints with Kind Baking Company?
