Wawa is a very successful chain of convenience stores located in the Philadelphia area which has expanded into a number of states in the Mid-Atlantic region. Wawa has a great partnership with PNC Bank, wherein PNC runs the ATM network inside all Wawa stores. For years they’ve had “no charge” ATM fees for Wawa customers, so regardless of who your bank is, there is no charge for using the ATM. (Of course, this helps drive traffic to the store – get some cash, and while you’re there, grab a hoagie.)

There’s a great user interface feature on the PNC ATMs that I’ve never seen on any other network. Once you do a transaction, the ATM will ask you if you’d like them to remember this as your preference for the future. What PNC has realized is that when most people go to the ATM, they get the same amount of money every time. Whether that’s $40, $100, $150, chances are that you’re plugging in those same numbers each time.

To speed the process, they simply ask you: “We notice that you just plugged in $100; would you like this to be your default amount for future transactions“? If you say yes, then it’s all set up. Right now. I basically slide my card in, put in my pin number, and it comes up and prompts me: “default amount” or “other”? I press one button and am done. And by the way, that also includes language preference. Most ATM machines now prompt for multiple languages but again, why confirm your language preference for every ATM transaction?

Small steps, yet so simple and so brilliantly executed that you have to wonder why every ATM doesn’t do it. Kudos to PNC!

Think about this today: What steps or requirements or hoops are you putting your customers through that are unnecessary?

We just added four new PDF case studies to our website, which can be found on our client list page. These include case studies about:

- ColorQuick, a software company developing game-changing technology in the printing industry. Our ethnographic research turned up new and compelling benefits for their target market.

- BlackGold BioFuels, an energy technology company that has a patented system for converting waste products into high quality bio-diesel fuel. We helped them design new services that support the technology product, as well as innovative new business models for rolling out their products and services.

- A major hotel chain and our work with them on designing new service revenue opportunities related to rapid developments in the Connected-TV space.

- A major luxury retailer and a series of card sort exercises we did for them related to a new product design initiative.

Also, after a number of requests from our business partners, we created a one-page executive summary about Frontier Service Design that can be downloaded here.

Read, learn and enjoy!

We recently came across an amazing service designed for kids; a Brooklyn, NY storefront appears to cater to outfitting superheros for his/her next crusade. The shelves are lined with tools of the trade – invisibility paint, capes, deflector bracelets, and bottles of chaos and anti-matter. Customers are treated as real superheroes throughout every facet of the customer experience – and take an oath when they leave the store not to share trade secrets with “villains.”

An actual business generating real revenue, this novel idea actually creates a comfort zone for the real business in the back-room; a non-profit creative writing and tutoring center called 826NYC.

Imagine students, who are hesitant at best when their parents sign them up for extra help (equaling extra homework.) Now they enter a cool and unique storefront, and get to the tutoring center through a secret bookcase in the back wall. What kid wants to walk into a storefront that says “Tutoring Center?”

826NYC is the second in a series. A pirate supply store called 826 Valencia, located in San Franscisco, was the first tutoring/creative writing center and was the brainstorm of Dave Eggers, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist novel “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.”

Since then, sister sites have popped up all over the country with different themed storefronts. Seattle has a space traveler theme and 826 Michigan is a robot supply and repair shop.

Many times, we assist our clients in finding new service design concepts in the most obvious places. This story also shows that sometimes you have to “zig” when logic would tell you to “zag.” Kudos to Dave Eggers and everyone involved with his tutoring program for thinking differently in order to help kids bridge the gap between their own inner hero and their schoolwork.

Click here to see a Dave Eggers discuss this project at the 2008 TED conference.

Have you ever visited Teavana ? In case you’re not familiar, Teavana is a retailer of high quality loose leaf tea. Most of their stores are in upscale malls, and that setting provides them with the perfect spot for a bit of what I call "retail theatre."

Teavana begins the customer experience before you reach the door. There is a table with samples of exotic teas, just on the threshold of the store. A staff member greets you and asks if you’d like a sample. Typically, one sample has caffeine and the other does not, thus something for everybody. Once you take a taste (delicious), the staffer invites you into the store. From there, it’s like being taken through a tea museum by a well-trained docent. I am a coffee-drinker but it was like a whole new world was opened up to me. Everything from the lighting, the color pallette used in the store, the new age soundtrack and the smells – oh, the smells – was like walking through some type of exotic garden. Loose teas from around the world made me feel as though I was on the threshold of a whole new world I never knew existed. The staffer guided me in a loop of the store and before I realized it, we are standing at the check out counter. She removed the lid from a large canister and waved the lid toward me in short, dramatic sweeps of her arm. My nose filled with a variety of intertwined scents – chocolate, orange, cinnamon, and others I couldn’t identify, but enjoyed nonetheless.

The point is that they make a visit to Teavana a whole experience that engages all of my senses – taste, sound, sight, touch – as well as my interest. All the tea’s a stage, and the customer is a guest star upon it. (more…)

Nordstrom learned long ago that you should never treat your customers like criminals. That’s why you can take as many items into a Nordstrom dressing room as you’d like. Unlike most retailers who limit you to three items and assume that everyone is out to steal, Nordstrom realizes that shoplifters represent a minuscule percentage of the people who are going into those dressing rooms.  Compare this to every other retailer, who makes trying on clothes a complete hassle by limiting you to three items, requiring you to find someone to unlock the door, etc.

At a recently opened store in Miami, Nordstrom introduced a new dressing room concept called "girlfriend dressing rooms" that have movable curtains to women to try on clothes together. Such an incredibly simple service design concept – and one that can only be realized by understanding what customers want and what they do naturally. For most women, shopping for clothes is a social activity and often a "team sport," and these new dressing rooms address that issue perfectly.