Mapping the Customer Experience

Kenwood, a true household name in British kitchens, has been designing and manufacturing quality kitchen appliances since 1947. To better understand why and how people bought their products they asked us to map the customer experience of purchasing its kitchen products, to identify opportunities for innovation.

IDENTIFYING PRODUCT TOUCHPOINTS

We set up an ‘in-store’ environment within our Observation Lab and asked prospective customers to assess Kenwood and competitor products against their own needs to uncover how physical design, materials, and features influenced their decision making. Seeing how much they physically interacted with the products to assess quality, we then coded their behaviours to find the most common product touchpoints.

OBSERVING THE PRODUCTS IN USE

Initial research showed consumers had certain expectations of their products, but reviews and returns data told us that they weren’t always happy. We delivered products to consumers, observed them opening and using it for the first time to capture the experience. We uncovered rich insight on how they used, cleaned and stored the products, what frustrated them and how well the products met their expectations.

CONCEPT CREATION

This research was visualised by a large customer journey map, which detailed each stage and touch-point of a user’s journey from initial need identification through to first use and storage. Key insights discovered in the research studies were translated into proposed product and service design concepts, as well as other opportunity areas highlighted for Kenwood to enhance the customer experience of its kitchen products.