» How not to Design Your Company’s Experience

One of the great things about being a blogger is the ability to bitch to a far greater audience than the typical person. All kidding aside, after reading the book Do You Matter? (See my impression of the book in my article “The Design Experience of the XBOX 360 and Nintendo Wii”) I have been acutely aware of what is going on around me. I have been closely following how each business I enter approaches the design of their experience, and how that affects customer behavior. Which is what leads me to the experience I personally received while visiting a local Staples store. I felt like sharing ths recent experience because of what a great case study it serves as. It just so happens that in this case we will learn from seeing what it is you absolutely should not do.

My Trip to Staples

In our quest at work to reduce clutter and become more organized, we made a decision to buy a digital recorder rather than messing with storing those little easily to misplace tapes. So off I went to staples to purchase a recorder. While in the store I find the section containing the recorders only to find a bunch of empty boxes with black and white sheets of paper in them with what is obviously not all the important information, so off I go to find a sales representative.

After I finally locate a sales representative I ask her my questions only to receive a blank stare in return. Not only does she not know the answers to my questions, she does not even know which models are in stock. So I make the best guess I can about which model to pick, and I am informed that she will check to see if it is available.

So I wait…

So the sales representative returns and informs me that it is in stock and will be waiting upstairs in customer service for me. So upstairs I go to customer service, where I find an empty desk.

So I wait…

Finally when someone comes I am given the box and look at the packaging, which still does not answer all of my questions. I end up buying the thing because I know I am not going to get the answers out of the customer service rep, and why would I ever want to put myself through that process again?

So I get back to the office, open the thing, put the batteries in and what do I find? I got the wrong one. You can’t download the recordings to a computer, so now I have to go back and try to exchange this thing to get the right one. At this point I am sure that the return experience is only going to be worse than the purchasing one.

Improving the Experience Through Design

My experience today at Staples could be easily rectified through design if the company just takes the time to immerse themselves in their process and see what it is like. Displays could be designed to make it easier to interact with the product (and still avoid theft). At the minimum level they could have at least taken the time to design a better information sheet for the products that would actually inform me about the product. Further away at the opposite side of the spectrum, they could even go so far as to hire and train a knowledgeable staff that can actually help me with my questions.

Either way, a better approach towards the design of the Staples experience would have kept my purchase instead of what really happened. I returned the device, still couldn’t get the answers I needed, and went to Office Max where I could at least read the package and makes a slightly more informed decision.

01/29

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15 Responses to “How not to Design Your Company’s Experience”

milo
January 30th, 2009 at 3:21 am

Did you check their websites?
I’ve tried to find something online (de store) and couldn’t find any appropriate description nor the product itself.
Apart from that their online design looks exactly like your experience…
Lilian
January 30th, 2009 at 5:22 am

“…the ability to bitch to a far greater audience than the typical person.” - Why I blog, in a nutshell. There’s no shame in that.

I’m sure the only criteria for employment in Staples is the ability to recite parts of the alphabet and look perpetually gaumless. I have plenty of stories about the staff in there… including how I fixed their photocopier.
Zinni
January 30th, 2009 at 7:16 am

Lilian,

You fixed THEIR copier? that is so ironic and hilarious…
Kevin May
January 30th, 2009 at 8:20 am

Instead of posting this.. why not go to a different store.
John Hilowitz
January 30th, 2009 at 8:33 am

Another note to Staples about ux through design. Have you ever tried to locate a box of staples at Staples? Try it sometime, it’s an interesting experiment.
Captain Palapa
January 30th, 2009 at 9:21 am

@KevinMay: One reason to post it is that you actually like the store, and hope someone, somewhere who actually cares might read it and say “Hey, you’re right”. You’re probably more likely to get action through an accidental tumble on your blog posting than if you actually wrote a letter to them. (Here you’re just “talking to friends” and they’d like to eavesdrop. Send them a letter and now you’re being critical. Ha.)
Zinni
January 30th, 2009 at 10:17 am

@Kevin - I did end up going to office max but that’s not really the problem here. It’s that they have actually designed a process that eliminates sales and frustrates potential customers, which I feel is worth discussing.

In fact I still order from staples online their delivery service is good, but in an economy where box box stores are dropping like flies, they desperately need to fix experiences like this.
AJ
January 30th, 2009 at 12:55 pm

I understand that this is a great article to focus on how a better design will work. At the same time, to be honest, I feel that even without the adequate information being provided to you, going on to make a purchase was a big mistake. Staples is no doubt horrible. For many reasons including design. That is precisely why I will never support them as you are essentially supporting all of the horrible attributes. I feel that we should all try our best to support the little guy who is knowledgeable and making an attempt (at least trying you know) to design the store well in all aspects.
Mark
January 30th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

I used to work for Staples way back in the day and we had the digital recorders in those giant anti-theft boxes so at least you could see there were some in stock.

As far as knowledgeable employees, ha! The product training we went through was pretty useless and outdated. Luckily we had a “life’r” who knew every product inside and out who we went to for info.

I find with any big box store these days you have to do the research on products yourself because the part-time employees don’t know squat.

I was once told at a best buy that people buy LCD TV’s more then Plasma TVs because they were “easier to use”…. Hmm..
Joni Mueller
February 1st, 2009 at 10:40 am

Researching a digital recorder, reading online reviews, consumer reviews, spec sheets, various companies’ online product sheets for the different brands of digital recorders available, narrowing those down to a handful of suitable choices … It’s what I always do before shopping for an electronic item, especially if more than a few hundred dollars is involved. Long gone are the days when stores such these can provide a staff that does much more than find their way to work in the morning. Knowledge is power; as a consumer, if you want the best deal, or if you want a decent deal, you have to be proactive in your quest for knowledge. You can’t wait in Aisle 9 for someone to hand it to you.

Notwithtanding all of that (and the fact that it’s “affects” and not “effects”), I enjoyed the article, especially your observation about being able to bitch to a wider audience. Secretly, I believe this is why a majority of us blog.
Kev
February 1st, 2009 at 2:11 pm

Just thank yourself you didn’t goto B&Q heheh

It’s all very well these big stores taking most of the competition away from the small shops but their customer service leaves a lot to be desired, at least with the small shops you could get someone knowledgeable regarding the products they sold, those days are numbered.
Zinni
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:27 am

@Joni,

Thanks for the heads up, I always mess up effect vs affect…
Derek
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:03 am

Staples is an enigma to me. I worked there for 2 years during college and never understood how they made money. I did however notice when I worked during customer hours that the majority of customers came to Staples knowing exactly what they wanted, very little people just stroll in to shop randomly.

I agree with you that generally the stores are poorly laid out, that was my job for a while. I drove around from store to store and remodeled them based on plans. Sometimes I would deviate the plan to make something work better. Sometimes I wondered if they were even seen by human eyes, as if a computer analyzed the inventory and organized items based on a characteristic. The one thing I always laughed at were the digital postal scales next to the polymer bags.
Click and Inc
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:19 am

Sad how company training doesn’t seem important to companies anymore. It’s all trickle down. The company doesn’t wanna pay someone extra to train so they just ask their current employees to do extra work for free which in turn makes the employee not care about it because they are not getting paid for it, which results in more bad employees. The economy stinks!