Super Retail Group (SRG) employees who work in-store at Rebel, BCF, and SuperCheap Auto rely on handheld devices called MiPals to perform jobs such as price-checking, printing shelf labels, and checking stock levels to deliver the best customer experience possible. But despite the investment a few years ago to develop 13 new apps to improve staff efficiency and customer experience, only 3 of them are actually used regularly – pointing to a bigger problem. Speaking to employees we learned that slow load times, inaccurate data feeds, disconnected workflows, and a steep learning curve for team members, mean that the future of the MiPal is in question.
Approach
In a 6 week customer experience and tech strategy discovery engagement, myself and a team of 1 junior ux designer supported by several MiPal development SME’s worked to identify and prioritise a set of opportunities. This discovery work included 2 x 90 minute walkthroughs of MiPAL apps to gain a high-level understanding of how they work. Myself and the other designer then completed 10 x In-store contextual enquiries where we shadowed 16 employees as they went about their work, noting our findings as we observed. I completed heuristic reviews for 8 key apps to assess the core user experience, and distilled all the outputs into a list of opportunities. Our tech SME’s then ran a technical assessments on each to help with prioritization.
Value delivered
Our discovery work resulted in 30+ opportunities being identified and prioritised using a DVF framework, to identify 8 quick wins, 6 longer term enhancement opportunities, and several high impact strategic opportunities that could only be achieved by changing to a new tech stack. The outputs of the engagement set Super Retail Group up to make an informed decision around the future direction of the MiPAL, and whether they should consider alternative technology based on their longer term vision for the type of customer experience they want to deliver.