Transforming how modern snacks are vended
Purchasing snacks from vending machines have a negative connotation: to the times when the machine eats your quarter, when the snack gets stuck, when you give in to late night cravings…
How can snacks at modern workplace be vended and associated with a positive consumer experience?
Our client approached us to reinvent the entire ecosystem of snack vending in B&I, by leveraging existing operations and available technologies.
For the purpose of storytelling, some data has been modified or omitted. The view of project does not reflect the views of the client.
Consumer / Operational Service Experience
Role: User Research, User Experience Design, Service Design
Team: 3 designers, 1 business manager, 1 product manager
Year: 2018
THE PROCESSCollecting insights through stakeholder, expert, customer & client interviews
Our team traveled to urban and suburban offices, conducting 10+ interviews and workplace tours. We gained a wealth of insight not just on food service operations, but also a critical need for innovative office amenities to attract new talent. In this context where stakes are higher than ever, vending machines are outdated and not relevant anymore.
Our team immersed ourselves through activities with clients such as relationship mapping, journey mapping, opportunity generation and tools observation. We consulted 4 industry experts and 6 industry clients.
Mapping the current ecosystem to better understand challenges and opportunity areas
To better understand the ecosystem and the challenges of the project, we mapped out the B&I industry landscape. This heuristic review of the current operational system was intended to help us identify opportunity areas to improve upon, guide nearer-term actions and inform the future state of industry.
How can we leverage new approaches and technology to help food service operations solve for the last mile?
The key insight was the challenges around the distribution system: products are efficiently delivered to stores and cafeterias, but to fill the last mile to business and individuals is very expensive.
Mapping the user journey and identifying better experience opportunities
As the research surfaced the heightened expectation for experiences, we lead a user experience audit of current office food and beverage purchasing and consumption, as well as parallel industry experiences. This activity helped us map out the existing pain points and identify key areas to improve upon.
Employees interact with different zones at different times through the workday. Each zone serves a different purpose and requires a distinct approach to stocking and experience. How can the new experience align with users’ unserved needs and values?
Creating storyboards of new vending experience in different work zones
We created experience storyboards to convey what the vending experience that provided unique solutions for distinct zones of the workplace could look like. We reorganized the ideas logically into 3 scenarios that revolved around distinct office setup and operational challenges, making it easier for the users to access snacks through the existing service ecosystem.
We reframed the project as we understood that we were not redesigning vending machines but addressing an unserved need for food and beverage in the workplace environment.
Unifying different components into a holistic connected story
To present the concept stories to the client, we visualized them and highlighted the demand moments, how the concepts satisfied stakeholders' needs, as well as how the opportunities capitalized on the cultural shift to reinvent the vending experience and calling out the competitive advantage.
Our approach focused on connecting the physical-digital user experience to the operational backend of 3POs and product brands. The visual language was intentionally left unbranded for our stakeholders to engage in conversations with their customers.
STORY PLATFORMS
Leveraging the existing ecosystem to build the modern vending business model.
Understanding key factors such as building layout, trust level and stakeholder needs – vending client, employees, company, 3rd party operator, and creating a business solution that benefit them all
In Single Tenant Building scenario, where there’s high trust level and food service runs the show – the cafeteria own the process to reflects the company’s culture and create a good experience for employees.
The opportunity is to help the cafeteria and the company reach the employees in more ways, such as grab-and-go options or during off-hours.
Approaching vending by solving for stakeholders’ pain points and elevating vending through integrated office snacking
Taking advantage of existing technologies to reinvent vending and integrate into the building and food service infrastructure seamlessly.
For the single Tenant Building scenario, integrated vending unit's system is an adaptable, unmanned food and drink system that is fully integrated into the business through a close link to the cafeteria.
The vending will benefit from the freshness halo of freshly prepared food and increase sales, the business will benefit from the more robust offerings and satisfying experience during off hours; the 3po will be able to reach more customers at more times
Supporting and motivating employees through easy access, smart variety and better vending experience
Meeting employees' primary unmet needs such as access to food or snacking during late or off hours, busy lunch hours, or catering moments
For the single Tenant Building scenario, employees access the units through a digital platform, with purchases adding to the reward / loyalty system.
The system provides personal project accounts with tracking and management, ability to charge a project or team outing, as well as purchasing if not subsidized by the company
Elevating company or building culture through low-key, high-tech hardware that can be easily deployed and returned
Key to hardware is to be able to seamlessly integrate into its surroundings, and a business model that allows for easy deployment, testing and data collection
For the single Tenant Building scenario, we showed flexible and contextual vending units that integrate seamlessly to the company culture and interiors
Conclusion
The project was very interesting, as it surfaced the extremely complex multi-layered relationships between building owners and tenants, companies, 3rd party operators, office managers, and employees. We created platform solutions that satisfy their needs, by reinventing consumer vending experiences and how vending solutions are placed and maintained in the workplace.
While it was challenging to reconstruct the existing pieces of the ecosystem while not losing sight of the nuances of each stakeholder needs and wants; it was heartwarming to see how each stakeholder is extremely welcoming to change and innovation, and willing to test new systems that can prove themselves worthy of their investment - which makes positive change possible!
Credits: Lisa Lehman, Eric Harsh
