Perfecting Service Transparency
Service design research simplifying user flow with forward thinking
Timeline
June - September 2021
Disciplines
User Research
Collaborators
4 UX Researchers
2 Product Designers
TLDR
I worked on this project during spring and summer 2021 when I worked at NIO, a electronic vehicle manufacturer who is famous for its focus on service experience and lifestyle delivered by CX and branding.
This project is an essential part of NIO’s effort on developing prominent and future-proof service experience.
The problem
There has been a few key concerns along the way of NIO Service’s progressive development...
Knowing the existing user pain points and internal pain points, how NIO Service's future would look like?
Alongside of NIO’s progressive development over the past four years, the amount of NIO driver expanded drastically. Some challenges appears and start to reproduce quite frequently.
Transparency
Are NIO Services’ processes transparent enough?
Communication
Are there effective communication channels between technicians, drivers, and various departments?
User Control and Freedom
Are users active or passive through the service process?
Among the numerous issue raised, some indicated touch points from driver / car owner perspective, some came from internal technicians / service members.
Knowing the existing user pain points and internal pain points, how NIO Service's future would look like?
Process
We started by designing the research method.
We used the classical double diamond model, conducting primary and secondary research at the same time.
My ROLE
What did I do?
I was involved with the whole process of this research, and mainly responsible for the field research part and insight generation.
1 on 1 Interview
30 min/each
Experience Observation
3 hr/city
Desk Research
Industry Analysis
Competitor Analysis
HMW Brainstorming
Field Research
Cities
Drivers
Service Providers
4
33
28
Workshop
Co-creation workshops, for collaborative problem-solving and insight generation.
Research Recap
Complicated usage scenarios, issues and key questions were found among desk, field research, and workshop.
Desk Research and Interview
Workshop
Service Partner Observation
Findings / persona
Four types of distinct drivers were identified
“NIO friends” Driver
“Advocate”
Active
Service-sensitive
Detail-oriented Driver
“User”
Efficiency
Price-sensitive
Result-oriented Driver
“User”
Passive
Result-sensitive
Expert Driver
“Expert”
Fan of cars
High involvement
Findings / User journey map
Exact user journey were mapped out to help us locate a specific process that needs to be solved
Due to time limitation and NDA, I wasn’t able to reconstruct and translate this map, but we will dive into the thinking and skills involved in it.
Insights / user
Persona-wise, data guided our emphasis and direction of future iteration
Brand Trust
Service Involvement
Low
Low
High
High
“NIO friends” Driver
21%
Detail-oriented Driver
21%
Expert driver
9%
Result-oriented Driver
48%
Design to reality
Feature-wise, feedback guided our emphasis and direction of future iteration
18 essential and typical key features or problems, and we are actually not doing good enough on most of them.
Exclusive assistant group chat dilemma
Vehicle issue categorization
Issue priority reference
Instant issue brief
Assigned technician for tutorial
System recommendation for service options
Assigned “fellow” to address major issue
Optimize exclusive assistant group chat
User cognition for testing report
Synchronizable backend update
Instant communication mechanism
Repair status visualization
Drop off and pickup tracking
Giving user options for service
Membership status reminder
Identical cockpit setting after service
Service entry visualization
Traceable feedback
Design to reality
Short-term, we wished to target to specific key concerns and pain point.
1
Building an agile and professional pre-service inquiry mechanism
Exclusive assistant group chat dilemma
Optimize exclusive assistant group chat
2
Helping users deliver constructive feedback to NIO Service team and corresponding resources
Giving user options for optional services
Vehicle issue categorization
Giving user options for specific services
User cognition for testing report
3
Promoting drivers’ knowledge and understanding to service status and content
Drop off and pickup tracking
Synchronizable backend update
Service center footage access
Repair status visualization
4
Building simple but efficient communication channel
Assigned “fellow” to address major issue
Design to reality
Long-term, we wished to keep moving to the future of EV services - smart and human-centered
Targeting to
Detail-oriented Driver
with personalized services,
while maintaining high quality of standard services for
Result-oriented Driver
Shawn Wang
Seattle, WA
January, 2024