Timeline

January — March 2020

My role

User research

Prototyping

Testing Operations

Interaction design

Workshop facilitation

Platform

iOS (React native)

Challenge

How might we help 7-Eleven Japan franchisees adapt and strive in an increasingly tough convenience store culture?

Japanese convenience stores struggle to differentiate and - open 24/7 - find it difficult to recruit and retain staff: labour is at a premium. At lunchtimes the stores are overwhelmed by customers queuing for bento and rice; others turn away, deterred by the crowds.

Approach

Working with a rapid prototyping and iterative process helped us validate a proposition that not only alleviate the workload and stress of store managers and staff at lunchtime, but also benefits 7-Eleven customers who save previous time on their break.

We built Yammi, a working app prototype, in less than two weeks and were able to test and iterate it over three scaled rounds of testing in Tokyo and Yokohama with 7-Eleven customers.

Solution

We built a pre-order app with in-app payment: a customer picks a collection slot, chooses 3 lunch items as part of a meal deal and gets notified when it’s ready to collect.

Working with local franchisee managers we prototyped the entire customer experience and operational fulfilment for pick-up in a city centre store in Tokyo’s financial district.

Interviewing Franchisees

A previous phase of work - led by a different Made by Many team - had focused on interviewing and generating insights from convenience store customers. Taking over the project, we realised we still had lots to learn about the industry and more specifically about 7-Eleven franchisees and store staff.

We wanted to learn about franchisees’ typical day running a convenience store, their struggles and the type of support they need to thrive in the challenging world of Japanese convenience stores.

*Three of the franchisees we interviewed*

The ideal convenience store experience

We talked to a larger group of customers and asked them to imagine about their daily routine when visiting convenience stores, the things they usually buy at different times of the day and what makes them want to shop in convenience stores.

We also ask customers about their ideal store experience using LEGO Serious Play activities. Most of them imagined stores without queues, supported by digital tools they could use to order items and pay upfront.

Prototyping and Testing

Based on research insights, I designed a clickable prototype that mocks up a lunchtime meal order and pick-up service that helped us test the following hypothesis with franchisees and customers:

A delivery service can help relieve franchisees at peak times
A delivery service can appeal to Japanese customers - how is food delivery in a corporate setup perceived in Japan?
Customers would rather order their lunch in advance and pick it up when it’s ready to collect, using a fast track lane in-store
Customers would rather order their lunch in advance and get it delivered to their office building

*Clickable prototype tested with customers and franchisees*

Findings

I. The app should only offer customers best sellers items as it would help franchisees manage stock and reduce waste.

II. The meal deal cost ¥700 - ¥750 as franchisees think customers would see value in a set meal for a set price.

III. Food delivery in a Japanese corporate environment is perceived as awkward and most customers wouldn’t feel comfortable getting their order delivered to their office.

Value proposition

Pre-order food service with in-app payment: pick a time slot, choose three lunch items from a selection for a set price (¥‎700), and get notified when food is ready to collect.

**Service Mapping**

To be able to test in the most realistic context we had to consider the relationship between different parts of the service (pick-up in-store, staff’s role, physical store, food stocks and temperatures, delivery location in office building…).
We created service blueprints for order pick-up in-store and pick-up from a dedicated area in the office building.

App prototype

After completing rounds of interviews and testing our clickable prototype, we decided to scale testing and to build our first coded prototype.

We ran three tests of increasing size and fidelity in real stores, making operational improvements and refining the app prototype experience each time.

Note: the app prototype is shown here in English but was tested in Japanese with Japanese speaking users.

time slots (1).png — **Booking Lunch Pick Up Time**

We learned very quickly that the user experience had to be fast and simple enough that customers could place an order in about 2 - 3 minutes every morning while commuting on a busy Tokyo train.
Customers first select a collection time slot, choosing from the slots available that day (logistics of pick-up and delivery influence time slots).
Notified by a notification that the order is ready, they would then make their way to the designated store to pick it up.

Accurate Stock Data

One of the challenges of this project was to not have access to a global 7-Eleven stock database. For our scaled tests with customers, we had to make sure that the items available in the app would also be available from the two shops we partnered with in Tokyo and Yokohama.

Working closely with these two stores, we were able to get access to their stock data for each of the days we tested the app with customers. We also did a lot of work to narrow down the offering to a manageable number available in the app (a typical 7-Eleven store sells hundreds of food items).

Checkout Flow

Up until the end of the checkout experience, customers have the option to change their order collection and swap items for others.

We also implemented a mockup payment system, enabling users to choose their preferred payment, with the option to add new cards to their account. Using a mockup feature helped us learn more about what Japanese customers expect of a payment feature and what most popular Japanese payment options would have to be included at a later stage.

Tracking Orders

Once an order has been placed through the app, it becomes essential for customers to be able to track the order status and for the app to provide feedback and guidance at the right time in the experience.

The order tracking feature is dynamic and prioritise certain bits of information at specific times in the flow.

I designed the status flow to have three main stages:

I. Order is being processed: collection time is the primary information at this stage and it’s displayed in bold at the top of the screen.

II. Order is ready to collect: customer receives a notification as soon as their order is ready to collect in store. Clicking on the notification reopens the app. At this stage, the primary information becomes the order number as they will have to retrieve their order using that unique number. Once the order is located, they can scan the order QR code on the receipt, directly from the app.

III. Order is collected: the customer has collected their order and there isn’t any more action required on their side.

Results

We established that the proposition gave clear benefits to customers and franchisees, that it was operationally feasible and had the design qualities and product fit necessary for successful implementation at scale.

The impact for the business isn’t simply reduced queue times and improved customer throughput and sales. The app gives the store the opportunity to make personalised offers directly to consumers. Their order history and preferences would enable stores to make precise demand forecasting and improve product assortment.

In just 11 weeks, 7-Eleven Japan understood how to move forward with a proposition that would increase store efficiency, improve revenues and help franchisees manage their workload better.