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Prioritising business challenges & creating new digital propositions with embedded CX research

areas of expertise

ux research & experience mapping

human centred design

product & design strategy

product optimisation & growth

service design

rapid prototyping

A woman stood in front of a large journey map. placed up on the wall of an office.

Established in 1937, the VW Group sells passenger cars under the Audi, Bentley, Cupra, Jetta, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda and Volkswagen brands.

When we were approached, VW & Audi faced a series challenges in delivering a seamless customer experience across their diverse product offerings and touch points, exacerbated by a fragmented organisational culture, differing priorities and a limited understanding of customer pain points, hindering their ability to progress and develop an effective innovation strategy.

objectives

The primary objective was to conduct an in-depth analysis of the end-to-end VW customer journey, uncovering frictions and pain points experienced by consumers across various stages, from research and purchase to in-life service and end-of-contract.

This comprehensive understanding was needed to empower the organisation and prioritise areas for improvement and innovation, as well as quickly identifying surface opportunities while uncovering areas that needed more investigation.

Additionally, our engagement was also needed to generate internal buy-in and foster a customer-centric mindset within the organisation. It was needed to create a clear "North Star" vision and strategy backed by thorough customer insights, to cultivate a culture of innovation and empower the organisation to embrace a customer-first approach.

This cultural shift was needed to pave the way for the development and validation of new product and service concepts, addressing identified pain points and enhancing the overall customer experience.

A woman takes a closer look at a cluster of customer and service frictions on a large journey map, placed on the wall of an office.

A woman unrolls a porton of a large journey map on a table, showing key customer stages and clusters of frictions underneath an anxiety scale.

impact

VW service design strategy

Prioritised innovation strategy & roadmap

The friction mapping analysis provided a thorough qualitative framework to prioritise areas of focus for Volkswagen and its Financial Services business, enabling them to understand where the most critical areas of focus are, while also providing a foundation for continuous discovery and innovation.

Our strategic research and planning helped to create the core central pillars and principals for the organisation as part of its evolving value proposition.

improved ux & service design

Validated UX & service concepts

Using our rapid prototyping framework, we were able to define and establish all of them to then test, validate and fully scope out as part of the strategic VW roadmap.

‍Building upon the insights from the customer journey mapping, we bought together a group of key stakeholders from across VWFS to work together on developing a series of new service and product propositions.

customer-led focus shift

Cultural CX transformation

By promoting a customer-centric mindset and emphasising the importance of innovation, our engagement contributed to a necessary cultural shift within Volkswagen Financial Services, fostering an environment conducive to continuous improvement and customer-focused decision-making.

Our work laid the foundation for ongoing internal CX-focused activities, as well as provide the right tools to champion ongoing innovation.