Re-imagining restaurant and customer service to provide best-in-class experience in times of rapid growth
The Challenge
Netpincér has been the leading food delivery company in Hungary for many years. Following their recent acquisition by the global leading Delivery Hero, combined with the challenges of the pandemic and increasing competition means that Netpincér is suddenly facing new challenges: how to keep up with the rapid expansion and increased popularity in a way that still values customer-centricity and allows vendor partners to grow alongside the company?
The Process
Through an intensive 3-week-long cooperation while we combined structured Customer Research and Design Sprint process, we learned side-by-side with Netpincér employees what are the deep needs and experiences of their vendor partners, mapped out the existing product portfolio and looked for opportunities to develop further to finish with several implemented solutions within a short time-frame.
Merging qualitative and quantitative approaches along the research helped us to clearly understand the deep needs and various attributes of Netpincér’s extensive vendor base, and the challenges they face due to the pandemic each and every day.
Building on the insights of the quantitative dataset, the team chose to focus on smaller, individual restaurants. By conducting 30+ customer interviews across the country, and shadowing existing service deliveries we immersed deeply in the everyday lives of the restaurants and uncovered two main development opportunities that fitted their mission of helping vendor partners grow:
(1) Most small restaurants we interviewed highlighted that due to in-dining closure, their traditional customer base disappeared and finding returning customers is an everyday struggle for them.
(2) Further, optimizing capacity utilization during uncertain restrictions is also a burning issue.
We started the Design Sprint week with the hypothesis that in these unprecedented, volatile times, building trust by providing quick, easy-to-use and easy-to-understand solutions are the key enablers to any problem-set.
Another key challenge we faced was the huge need and affection towards personalized services, and that due to the rapid growth during the pandemic Netpincér’s vendor service shifted the initial B2B to more like a B2C type of business model, that very much impacted how the services/products can be developed or redesigned. Our solutions were built around need-based sophisticated partner education solutions which are also available for wider audiences.
Shifting gears allowed for the Design Thinking process to tackle a true need, encouraged the team to bravely change directions during the process while not endangering the outcome, and deliver three solutions that meet the viability, feasibility as well as the desirability criteria. During the Sprint, these solutions were turned into prototypes within one day, tested on real customers right after, iterated and improved upon, and finally set up to become working improvements on the platform within a couple of week’s notice.
By taking part in this fully guided process with edUcate, Netpincér was able to stay true to its core values and improve the experiences of customers who truly had a need for it, while also meeting deadlines and business expectations.
The impact
This is a great example of how non-tech solutions can also be great - if not the best - in boosting customer experiences and implementing changes rapidly in a corporate environment.
We learned that strengthening trust by education and information sharing can result in not only valuable service level improvements for clients but also direct revenue boosting solutions.
Outcomes are not only realized in concrete implemented solutions, but also as an added benefit, in company-wide increase of human-centricity. As we heavily involved Netpincér’s cross-functional team in the creation process and got them out of the building, they gained a deep understanding of the vendors. This helped them create need-based solutions, as well as take full responsibility for their work, engage in team conversations and break down functional silos within the company. It all contributed to the mindset shift and boosted the cultural transformation that the company was longing for. The key now is to carry this mindset further so that it can become the core of the company’s culture. The time spent on and effort put into the Design Sprint does in no way mean the work is done; it is merely the beginning and a good direction to keep growing in.
We, at edUcate, believe that for achieving real impact, we must support our partners along the way from step zero, and all the way until the whole solution is implemented. Our engagement with Netpincér started with the aim of building innovation capability and culture within the company through trainings, organisational design and innovative product development projects like the above. We continue to mentor the teams as these ideas become reality through continuous iterations with customers.
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