In Ukraine, independent retailers have the edge over telco giants in selling smartphones: better locations, competent agents, and a wide range of devices.
We proposed CX team from the telco operator use this challenge to practice the service design approach.
We helped the team to discover how to double device sales without going into a price war.
The Challenge
In Ukraine, most smartphones are sold at multiband electronic shops – both online and offline
Mobile operators develop their own retail but struggle to compete with established retail chains. They have no competitive edge in terms of prices, staff, or locations.
One of the operators wanted to find an efficient way to grow sales.
Key insights
The head of the mobile devices business line has traditionally focused on having a wide range of smartphones, good promotions with vendors, and incentivizing frontline
The team saw that majority of customers try to repair their broken smartphone before buying a new one
The team saw that customers make decisions on which device to buy and where to buy it separately
The Outcome
The team prototyped and tested several solutions:
Identify customers whose smartphones are broken. They are calling service centers and typically put their SIMs into older smartphones when their phones are being fixed
Propose a bonus for the customers so that they can “showroom” at any store, but make a purchase at operator’s one
During the first pilots, we saw a 100% increase in device sales
The team got a positive experience with using a human-centered design approach in their business
In 6 months, the client ordered a second training and then formed an in-house service design team
Tools and an approach
For the pilot project, we advised the client to focus on a single scenario: replacing a broken phone
Team members first mapped the “as-is” journey of a customer. Mapping ignited discussions and resulted in a long list of questions for the customers
After the interviews, participants shared their learnings and observations. They realized the broader context of the purchase, not only behaviors at the store
We helped participants to synthesize insights and formulate compelling design challenges before brainstorming ideas
The team to see how customer focus helps them to compete
At the final presentation, key stakeholders were eager to implement the outcomes of the training project
The team
A consultant from Lanka helped the client to select a relevant challenge for the training: narrow but promising
We insisted on inviting people from the product, marketing, sales, and operations to the training and facilitated their collaboration
The client's team did all the interviews and prototypes, brainstormed ideas, and presented the final solution to the CEO of the company
Do you want to double sales?
Do you want us to teach your colleagues how to spot growth opportunities?
Contact us. We are ready to help.