Identifying Opportunities for Increased Operational Efficiency and Enhanced Customer Experience

global luxury retailer

Mar 12

Written By Ruby Tang

Ruby’s Role

Led research and discovery of opportunities for improved operational efficiency and customer experience.

Research

Conducted team alignment interviews and workshops to clarify objectives and stakeholder needs.
Conducted user research with internal teams and external users, including interviews, secret shopper, job shadowing, surveys, and workshops.
Mapped as-is user journeys and service blueprints to understand existing processes and pain points.

Discovery

Brainstormed opportunities for innovation and conducted ideation workshops.
Tested potential solutions with internal staff and users to determine feasibility and estimate impact.
Several solutions proposed were added to client’s development roadmap or passed to client’s headquarters for further consideration. Solutions were expected to cut backoffice hours 7.5% (~3 hours per store associate per week) and drive 10-25% incremental store revenue.

Challenge

A leading global luxury retailer was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. With less foot traffic, the retailer wanted to optimize retail operations efficiency so staff could dedicate more time to elevating the customer experience.

Opportunities for Improvement

From our research, we uncovered 18 potential opportunities for innovation, ranging from short-term “quick wins” to longer-term strategic initiatives.

#1 WhatsApp for Business

Problem
Store associates rely on personal WhatsApp messages to serve clients, tagging ad-hoc notes (sizes, preferences, product reservations) directly in contact names. The result is fragmented history, no analytics, privacy risks, and missed follow-ups.

Solution
We recommended adopting the WhatsApp Business Platform to centralize client conversations and use features such as labels (“Product Reservations”), internal notes, and templated messages for back-in-stock alerts or automated appointment reminders. We also recommended providing staff training and governance to ensure compliant, on-brand communications.

Impact
Associates estimate saving roughly 60-90 mins a week on manual note-taking and organization, while enterprise controls eliminate privacy risks and lost customer insights if a phone is lost or an employee leaves.

This feature was added to our client’s development roadmap.

#2 Digital Queue Ticketing

Problem

Queue ticketing was being handled manually, with customers registering their numbers at the entrance and staff calling them when their turn arrives. This process resulted in average wait times of around one hour for ~60% of customers, and during peak non-COVID hours, wait times could extend up to three hours.

Solution

We proposed a digital queuing system that enables customers to register via our client's app or website and notifies them via text or call when it is their turn.

Outcome

We prototyped a digital queuing system and estimated a 40-50% cut in median wait time, from ~60 min to ~35 min. Boutique managers predict a 10-15% lift in post-visit CSAT and smoother crowd control during product-launch peaks. This feature was added to our client’s development roadmap.

#3 Centralized Product Styling Content Hub

Problem

Product styling information was fragmented across multiple platforms including team chats, WhatsApp messages, personal photo albums, and the staff app. Each staff member, store, and location maintained their own separate information, and was not shared universally.

Solution

To improve accessibility and visibility of this information, we proposed consolidating all product styling data into the staff app. This app would allow employees to upload photos directly from their phone's photo albums, ensuring all relevant information is centralized. Additionally, we proposed implementing filtering by customer characteristics, such as age and location and, in a later phase, enriching those filters with transaction history to generate even more tailored style suggestions.

Impact

We determined that creating a centralized styling hub would significantly enhance associates’ product knowledge and streamline the customer experience by eliminating the time associates spent on searching for information. Moreover, it would enable associates to offer more personalized service.

Prototype testing using a simple photo album with filters showed that styling resources were used in 60% of client interactions before the prototype and 80% after, while the average time to locate a styling reference dropped from ~6 mins to ~3 mins.

#4 System Integration

Problem

Currently, the point of sale (POS), mobile POS, inventory management system (IMS) are separate, outdated systems. This fragmentation is responsible for approximately 72% of store associates’ workflow issues. Challenges include the need for manual entry of product information, frequent system crashes that result in data loss, and the requirement for associates to manually enter transactions from the mobile POS into the main POS system. Furthermore, there is no integration of POS data with customer information.

Solution

By updating and integrating the various systems, we can provide our client with significant benefits. These include reduced time spent on repetitive administrative tasks and enhanced visibility into customer purchase habits. This integration will enable store associates to improve service quality and exploit more opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.

Impact

The integration of these systems is expected to streamline operations significantly. Workflow mapping with 8 associates showed they spend about 3.5 hours per week on duplicate data entry and error correction. System integration is projected to cut that time by ~57%, to around 1.5 hours per week. Easier access to customer profiles would also let associates tailor add-on suggestions, with the potential to raise average transaction value by 10-25%.

#5 Employee Feedback Platform

Problem

We noticed during store associate interviews and job shadowing, that associates needed significant time documenting issues to share with management at a later date, and at times, they had difficulty recalling and replicating issues.

Solution

We proposed establishing a self-service system where staff across the organization and at all levels can report issues. To avoid high initial development effort and costs, the system could be first prototyped in a low-tech manner, through a survey form. The form would prompt staff to input key information such as frequency of occurrence, platform/device used, steps taken to resolve the issue and suggestions for fixes.

Impact

A pre-launch survey of 39 store associates showed that 66% wanted a self-service feedback tool. They expected three main benefits: increased accuracy of issue reporting (78%), increased ease of reporting (74%), and decreased time spent on reporting (39%).

During a 2-week pilot in two boutiques (17 associates), a simple survey link produced 22 actionable issues, compared with the historical 5–7 per month. Staff also cut issue-reporting time from 1-hour weekly meetings to just 5–10 minutes per person per week.

#6 Predictive Personalization

Opportunity

Our research into our clients' customer experiences, through interviews and shadowing, revealed a significant demand for personalized product and styling recommendations that align with current trends. 80% of customers we interviewed expressed interest, and 75% showed a preference for store associates that could provide personalized product recommendations.

Solution

We advised our client to adopt a predictive analytics platform, a tool increasingly used by leading brands, including luxury names like Dior and Prada.

Additionally, we recommended our client to integrate predictive trend data with customer profiles, including information about customer preferences and transaction histories, which would allow store associates to provide trend-aware, personalized product recommendations to each customer.

Impact

Our strategic recommendation was passed onto the client's headquarters for further evaluation and future implementation.