Service Design | UX Research | Journey Mapping | Enterprise Strategy
Overview
As Principal UX Research and Service Design consultant, I partnered with a Fortune 100 home improvement retailer to better understand its professional customers and improve how they engaged with the company's digital and in-store experiences.
Working alongside a design management consultant, two internal UX designers, and cross-functional stakeholders, I led the research strategy, designed the research plan and protocols, conducted field research, synthesized insights, and helped shape the organization's service strategy.
The Challenge
The company wanted to strengthen relationships with professional customers but was relying on several assumptions about who these customers were and what influenced their purchasing decisions. Existing segmentation, loyalty strategies, and digital experiences were not adequately reflecting how professionals actually worked.
Phase 1: Discover
I developed the research plan and discussion guide, then traveled across multiple states to conduct qualitative research with 29 professional customers.
Research activities included:
In-depth interviews
Contextual inquiry
Ride-alongs and field observations
Journey mapping
Persona exploration
This phase revealed that purchasing behavior was influenced by far more than spend volume, price, or convenience. Community relationships, business maturity, and work practices all shaped customer loyalty and decision making.
Phase 2: Validate & Co-Design
Using insights from the first phase, we returned to the field with a smaller group of participants for deeper contextual research.
Activities included:
Spend-mapping exercises
Observation of estimating and quoting workflows
Wireframe evaluations
Early concept testing with customers
These sessions uncovered important gaps between the company's internal assumptions and the realities of professionals' day-to-day workflows, leading to improvements in proposed digital experiences.
Phase 3: Synthesize & Model
I led the synthesis effort by analyzing interview data, building affinity maps, clustering insights into themes, and developing customer models and personas.
Together, the team identified:
Distinct professional customer archetypes
New drivers of loyalty
Opportunities across the end-to-end service journey
Areas where digital and in-store experiences could better work together
Phase 4: Strategy & Organizational Adoption
Working with stakeholders across the organization, we translated research into actionable recommendations, service models, and an adoption roadmap for executive leadership.
The work informed future investment across:
Omnichannel customer experiences
Loyalty and rewards strategy
Quoting and estimating workflows
Digital product improvements
New revenue opportunities
My Role
Principal UX Research Consultant
Service Designer
Research Strategy & Planning
Field Research Lead
Contextual Inquiry
Journey Mapping
Research Synthesis
Persona Development
Executive Readouts
Service Strategy & Roadmap