FUTURE FIT: THE FUTURE OF RETAIL TRAVEL
The Distillery was engaged by House of Travel to help them understand how to remain relevant and deliver exceptional customer experience in an industry increasingly dominated by online travel agents and online bookings. The project comprised five phases:
EXPLORE & UNDERSTAND
- In-depth contextual research into the travel market and global and local trends in the industry, with a particular focus on how the role of technology is shaping the retail travel landscape and the customer experience and expectations.
- A series of one-on-one video customer interviews focused on uncovering needs, ambitions and motivations, anxieties and frustrations for modern day travellers.
- A series of retail outlet visits, observations, interviews and exercises for retail consultants to understand their perceptions of the industry, challenges and frustrations, and how they spent their time.
IMMERSE & IDEATE
The information above was analysed and translated into a range of visual stimulus material for use in a series of structured design thinking workshops with Owner Operators, Travel Consultants and Head Office staff.
These were two day sessions, conducted in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, in which participants reviewed the collateral in a series of custom developed exercises, mapped the customer journey in detail, and made recommendations on how this journey and both the customer and consultant experience might be improved.
DISTIL & DEFINE
The outputs of all of the sessions above were reviewed in a single workshop session to distil the key themes and focus areas, and decide which ideas would be prioritised for prototyping.
DESIGN & DEVELOP
Key areas for improvement were iteratively prototyped in a practical hands-on working session aimed at translating the insights and recommendations from the research and previous workshops into tangible artefacts and working prototypes.
DRIVE & DELIVER
The ideas and prototypes from the previous phases were carefully sequenced into initiatives in a larger programme of delivery for the organisation as a whole.
OUTCOMES
This was a successful project that generated a wide array of insights for House of Travel, significant engagement amongst retail travel consultants and owner operators, and gave them a very clear steer on how they can remain relevant in a highly competitive industry.
Workshop participants reviewing internal data and visual stimulus material (posters with yellow dots) presenting customer experience trends both in and out of category.
Participants reviewing quotes and associated provocation from retail travel outlet observations, interviews and exercises.
Participants reviewing customer video interviews and completing an exercises to capture key dimensions of the customer experience.
Participants working in teams to collate and transcribe the insights for each customer onto a large banner, which they later presented to their colleagues.
Participants completing a custom-developed customer journey mapping exercise.