Business Case
Title
Subtitle
The Challenge:
Defining Joy
of Shopping
This exploratory research project's challenge was understanding joy in the context of shopping and how to deliver it to Ikea customers.
On one hand, Ikea needed to define what joy meant for the company. Was it about recurring sales or higher ticket spending? Was it about improving the in-store experience?
On the other hand, there was the need to understand what joy meant for the customer. Was it about understanding the pains and turning them into gains, or enhancing the gains so they became greater?
By better understanding the customer experience and immersing ourselves in the Ikea context, we were able to work on the answers and initiated our Discovery process with Secondary and Primary research.
The Initial Process:
Understanding the users
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06 In-store observations to understand customers and staff's behavior during daily operations. It was possible to identify their feelings and interactions in a natural setting through active observation.
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18 Customer interviews about main observations, their understanding of joy while shopping at Ikea, and their main frustration. Staff interviews to understand main complaints and difficulties.
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Mapping the Customer Journey representing their main actions, and searching for pains and gains and emotions. This helped us understand the different decision processes and the touchpoints that affected customer's perceptions and satisfaction while shopping.
What is Joy?
Joy is made of bursts of happiness. It is a subjective feeling of extreme pleasure that requires continuous stimuli. It is achieved when satisfaction is surpassed. To provide a joyful experience at Ikea, it was necessary to identify the stimuli and possible causes affecting it. That meant understanding the whole range of negative feelings throughout the shopping journey and seeing how they differed for each type of customer. That way, it would be possible to find exceptional opportunities to exceed their expectations.
The Insights
1. Any shopper can rapidly shift from one persona to another.
This meant that it was impossible to guarantee a peak of joy by focusing on only one persona. It was important to understand how and when they wanted to interact with the space and the people around them.
2. For Ikea customers, joy comes from having a home that represents them in every step of their life.
Customers want their houses to reflect their essence and to be upgraded in every important step of their lives. Houses are like physical trophies of achievement; envisioning them is a powerful tool.
3. People don't buy furniture, they buy the idea of experiences they can have with them.
Anticipation can increase joy as it gives us context, perspective, and direction. We want to create unique memories in our houses, but that is hard when we end up buying the same ikea coffee table as everyone else.
4. Joy is sensed with all our senses. And Ikea's meatball can trigger joyful memories.
Shoppers find the Ikea experience unpleasant, but they are willing to overcome it. The end of this overwhelming journey is marked by Ikea's meatballs that are perceived as a joyful reward.
HMW BRING PEAKS OF JOY DURING HMW BRING PEAKS OF JOY DURING THE IKEA'S CUSTOMER JOURNEY?
The Ideation Process
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originated from the insights
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developed for testing
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selected upon iteration