A positive customer experience served with a dash of milk

Harris + Hoole coffee cup

If you've read my blog before you might have noticed that I'm a huge fan of Foursquare for discovering new places and Tuesday afternoon was no different. I had just met a friend near London Bridge and I really fancied a coffee so I opened up Foursquare on my phone and searched for nearby coffee shops. I was looking for something new and spotted Harris + Hoole located just around the corner on Tooley Street and then saw a tip that said "Download the iPhone app for a free coffee". Having just got back from three months travelling I am conscious of my spending so this sounded perfect!

I tapped on the website link in the tip and was greeted with a link to download either the iTunes or Google Play version of the H+H app (which was good because I'm an Android girl now!) and I installed the app. The first thing I saw was a welcome screen followed by a few more screens that gave me a quick intro to the app where I also discovered that I could choose pay with my mobile - things were just getting better and better!

Eager for my caffeine fix I happily went about setting up my profile and added a selfie from my photo library that would allow me to be recognised in store once I was checked in. I then selected and customised my favourite cup of coffee known within the app as "My Usual" which can then be used to automatically order your drink when you check in (flat white, medium sized, three shots, whole milk, standard temperature, no flavourings and certainly not decaf).

A selection of screens from the app

Upon my arrival at H+H I was greeted by the two lovely ladies who were working there. Now, I probably should have mentioned that I was sitting right next to H+H in More London eating my lunch whilst I was setting up the app and being a little bit over excited I had already tapped the check in tick to see what would happen. It said I was checked in to the coffee shop and I could go ahead and redeem my free coffee. It was probably another 10 minutes or so before I actually made it inside and when I showed them my phone they said "Oh, there you are!". Apparently I had flashed up on screen when I first checked in but at the time the shop had been full of men in suits none of whom matched my newly added profile pic! I explained that I worked in digital design and had a tendency to play around with things like this! My previous check in had expired so I checked in again and voilà "My Usual" was on its way.

We had a little chat about the app and the system and as the staff knew who I was they addressed by my first name. I was made to feel really welcome and, well, special as I was getting personalised service and a cup of coffee made just how like it.

The coffee itself was really great and it tasted so much better having just had a really good customer experience. This is the actual message that I sent to my friend as I was drinking my coffee which is basically a summary of this post:

"I just found a coffee shop on Tooley Street using foursquare, read a tip that said download their app for a free coffee, so I did and I created my profile and selected my fav coffee, customised exactly how you want, then I checked in when I got here and it ordered my coffee straightaway AND they all knew my name and welcomed me! How cool is that?!?!"

I went on to tell him that he should visit and sent him the link. I felt compelled to tell others about my good experience so they could experience it too.

The app also includes a map of H+H branches and a loyalty card which allows you to collect stamps and receive another free cup after six visits. Adding a payment card for future use was super easy and you can choose between manual or auto-top ups for convenience. The app is simple and not over loaded with unnecessary features. It knows what it is and it does it well.

So, if you want to do coffee sometime I know just the place!

Confab Fringe Meetup – March 2013

On Tuesday, 19th March, The London Content Strategy Meetup held a special Confab Fringe event at Google Campus that featured three great talks about content strategy from the Government Digital Service and Confab speakers ahead of the first ever Confab London Content Strategy conference taking place this week. Here are some of the notes that I made during the evening:

Neil Williams: On Her Majesty’s Digital Service Neil is a Product Manager at Inside Government where they are merging the websites of all government departments and many other public bodies into one section of www.gov.uk.

• Currently content is spread across many sites and as such is incomplete.
• 14 of 24 Ministerial departments have been moved over to www.gov.uk/government in four months which has included the migration of 45,000 documents.
• GOV.UK is a product that people want and research shows they would use it again.
• Start with needs – Who are the users? What do they need? Document user needs on a spread sheet (user stories). These needs inform every decision.
• Bring people with you – Everyone is involved.
• Constrain formats – No such thing as a 'general page' all content must meet user needs. There is no space for waffle on GOV.UK!
• Editors, dev and designers together - Sit together, learn together, build together.
• Quality – Validation, performance metrics and spot checks are used to ensure quality content at this scale.
• Change management – Need to consider all of the stakeholders involved and make sure they are listened too and included in the journey.

Gigi Griffis: Content Strategy with a World-Changing Twist Gigi is a Content Strategist and web writer.

• Think macro – Improve working relationships and identify people within organisations who are not working together but should be.
• Think micro – How can Content Strategy help your portfolio or an Airbnb listing? A/B titles and descriptions.
• Be creative (and sneaky) – Incorporate Content Strategy wherever you can to demonstrate value and help you sell it in. Project briefing forms are a way to identify user needs.
• Content strategy not only teaches people how to create and manage content but also how to think about content, marketing strategies and customers in the long term.

Leisa Reichelt: Prototyping User Experience Leisa spoke about Strategic User Experience and explained that with a better understanding of business strategy we can align our work to business goals and consequently deliver better customer experiences.

• A two way approach – Top down (designing better environments for doing better UX) and Bottom up (delivering strategy through execution to drive change).
• Work in a multidisciplinary team. Sketch to HTML, stay out of Photoshop.
• Document only what's necessary.
• Don't work alone – Common sense emerges quicker when you pair with somebody else.
• Test multiple prototypes – Don't commit to being right at the start.
• Use real content and test the content.
• "Show, don't tell" – Showing stakeholders prototypes gives them a better sense of what you are making and allows you to make decisions based on evidence.

Three great talks and some very practical takeaways. I'll finish with one of my favourites quotes of the night from Leisa Reichelt:

"Prototyping beats abstraction"