Creating profitable opportunities for a cafe’s growth, through its customers
Systems Thinking | Service Design | UX Research
OVERVIEW
PERC, originally Panther's Eye Roasting Company, emerged in 2010 in Savannah, GA, founded by Philip Brown. The journey expanded beyond Savannah to Atlanta, creating vibrant spaces and emphasizing high-quality coffee. The company, with a dedicated team, shares exceptional coffee experiences with a growing community.
GOAL
Over 10 weeks, we looked at PERC from a business perspective as well as a customer perspective. We aimed to contribute to creating profitable opportunities for PERC’s continued growth, through its customers. The focus was on strategic thinking to enhance PERC’s service offerings, and ultimately elevate the overall PERC experience for their community.
OUTCOME
Through the PERC app, we implemented a new ordering system called 'Vibe Check' and introduced the 'Perc Pass' rewards program to enhance PERC’s customer experience and align with our business objectives.
USERS
PERC as an organization and its customer base, with a specific emphasis on university students.
ROLE
Service Designer and Researcher
TOOLS
Adobe Illustrator
Canva
Miro
Uizard Ai
TEAM
Muskan Gupta - Service designer
Ryan Spears - Service designer
Yash Jain - Service designer
Sunghan Kim - Professor
TIMELINE
10 weeks | Sep 2023 - Nov 2023
Challenge
PERC provides good coffee but struggles to make it affordable for students while dealing with long wait times and confusion among students about which coffee to choose.
Introducing
Vibe Check
Perc Pass
Through the Perc app, customers can find the right coffee and place orders online to tackle the ambiguity around their order status, while having a gamified experience through Perc’s rewards program to buy affordable coffee.
What
Customers : To ease the process of finding the right coffee and buying it at affordable prices. Perc’s Business : To help Perc’s business side increase its B2C coffee bean sales and improve its overall in-store experience.
Why
Customers interact with the services on the app.
Vibe check : Customers find out their coffee preferences through a short questionnaire.
Perc pass : Customers buy a membership to earn rewards and streamline ordering at affordable prices.
How
The Perc Family
The stakeholder map helped align the relationships of all actors within Perc’s ecosystem.
Our focus was mainly on gathering insights from the core actors which are Perc’s customers with an emphasis on university students who brew coffee at home and ones who like to go to a cafe and Perc as an organisation itself.
What people have to say about Perc
At Perc
Money
“Perc has good coffee but it is overpriced for the portion size.”
Wait time
“Sometimes the wait time to place an order and get coffee is too long.”
Order status
“We didn’t even know when our coffee was ready.”
Coffee quantity
”If you’re looking for a trendy place to hang out, Perc is a great choice. If you actually like coffee and want more than a few sips of it, you’ll be as disappointed as I was.”
We conducted ethnography, interviews and surveys and these were some of the significant findings that stood out.
At Home
Save time and money
“Saving time, money and convenience are very important to me when brewing at home.”
Brewing knowledge
“Lack of brewing knowledge and finding the right coffee are my biggest challenges.”
Choice of coffee
“I don’t know which coffee is best for me if I want to brew at home.”
Brewing
46% customers are not satisfied with their self-brewed coffee as they would like to be.
Our archetype depicts key characteristics, behaviors, and needs of our customer.
Archetype
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Student pursuing a master’s degree at SCAD.Characteristics:
Diligent student, tech-savvy, budget-conscious, on a tight schedule.Goals:
Quality and quick coffee.
Affordability.
Knowledge about different types of coffees.Why Perc?
For its quality coffee and friendly baristas.
User Insights
After synthesizing all our data, we discovered key insights for both, Perc’s student customers and Perc’s business that were crucial for the further design process.
Perc’s Customers
Students lack brewing knowledge incase they want to brew coffee at home.
Students have to face long wait times at Perc during peak hours just to get a cup of coffee.
There is ambiguity around the order status after placing an order at the counter.
Finding the right coffee if challenging as students don’t always know what they want or like.
Perc’s Business
Perc encounters challenges with low B2C bean sales due to perceived overpricing relative to the quantity offered.
Perc struggles with long lines during peak hours which increases ordering time for its customers.
Perc has an extremely sub-par reward system that it’s customers are unaware that it exists.
Perc has disconnected business offerings that lack cohesion, leading to a fragmented and disjointed customer experience.
Customers find it hard to pick the right coffee, wait for too long and get confused about their order status, while PERC faces issues with low B2C bean sales, long lines, inconsistent offerings, and an undesirable rewards system, all affecting the overall in-store customer experience.
Problem Statement
How Might We ?
Enable customers to successfully find the right coffee for themselves?
01
Ensure that customers try out coffee beans while placing an order at PERC?
02
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01. Discover your Vibe
Scan a QR code to view and access Vibe Check on your phone.
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02. Fill Vibe Check form
Interact with the “Vibe Check” form. Fill in your coffee related preferences based on the questionnaire.
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03. Know your Vibe
See the results based on your responses and receive personalized coffee recommendations and additional discounts, offers and perks. Place your order and redeem the perks!
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04. Receive notification once order is ready
Get a text message alert as soon as your order is ready without having to wat in line.
Make if affordable for customers to buy coffee beans regularly?
03
Introducing the Perc Pass.
The Perc Pass offers rewards through its membership.
Here are some of the features:
Freemium membership tiers.
Student pass for less than $20.
Get a monthly free coffee.
Pay for coffee with points.
Usability Testing
and Feedback
We tested the prototype with our student user group and this was the feedback we received from them.
Based on the feedback, we incorporated the changes in the final product that you see above.
Sharing personal details
We love Vibe Check but we don’t want to share our phone number while filling it.
Sign up
I don’t want to sign up to see my Vibe.
Higher discounts
It would be nice to have higher sign up discounts.
Redeem points
I want to pay for my coffee with the points I earn.
Student pass
The student pass should be less than $20.
Membership discounts
I want my coffee bags to be discounted as well as part of my membership.
Perc’s Ecosystem
Before & After the Solution
Before (Current state)
After (Future state)
Key Performance Indicators
We applied a few metrics that provide measurable benefits that can be tracked over time to assess performance and inform decision-making for Perc’s business goal.
Perc’s Business Goal
Perc wants to increase sale of coffee beans for in-store customers while reducing ordering time during peak hours.
Number of “Vibe Check” completions and “PERC Passport” sign-ups.
Enhanced customer engagement.
Repeat in-store purchases and bean sales.
Improved customer loyalty.
Average order processing time during peak hours.
Order efficiency.
Increased coffee bean sales.
Overall revenue growth.
Average number of memberships per month.
Membership promotion.
Process and Methodology
Lessons Learned
Conceptual understanding: I've gained insight into understanding core concepts by using research methods to determine various aspects of problems, identify key elements, and understanding their interconnections.
Innovative application: I've developed the ability to offer diverse perspectives, generate quantity and quality of distinctive ideas branching out from existing principles.
Effective Communication: I've learned to convey key messages of concepts concisely and immersively, using artifacts and visualization methodologies to enhance communication.
Multidisciplinary Aptitude: I've gained the ability to integrate diverse insights from different fields, to create innovative solutions.
Systemic Thinking: I've grasped an understanding of the multilayered aspects of system behavior and applied systemic thinking, recognizing the importance of service exchange and value co-creation in a systemic context.