What is White glove delivery, why do we design it?
White glove delivery services are designed to offer convenience and peace of mind on purchase of large/ bulky household items for walmart customers. This service includes services like removal and disposal of packing materials, delivering to room of choice, light assembly work and haul away of old items.
My role:
I led the design of the white glove experience on CXO team (Cart& Checkout experience ) from September 2018 to December 2018 and collaborated two other designers responsible for fullfillment / scheduler experience . In addition, I worked alongside another a Researcher, Content Strategist and 2 Product Managers from the vertical product team and cart&checkout product team on this project.
White glove delivery service launched globally on March, 2019.
01 | High level goal of the project
The goal of the white glove delivery is to offer convenience and peace of mind on purchase of large/ bulky household items which includes some or all of relevant services like removal and disposal of packing materials, delivering to room of choice, light assembly work and haul away of old items.
Business believe that this offer will increase GMV from items where white glove delivery will be offered. This is expect to increase profitability by reducing return rates due to lost or damaged items and monetizing and charging the customers for these services
02. Understanding User’s pain point:
Online shopping for bulky/ heavy and typically freight items comes with it's own challenges
It is hard and physically impossible for some to move the items to their intended location inside the home. It involves moving large and heavy boxes through the doors, moving them up flight of stairs etc.
Unpacking and disposal of packing materials is a pain for customer.
For some, handling and putting these items together is not feasible due to weight and/ or certain skills needed and can lead to damage to items or worse self injury.
Curbside delivery of items exposes customer to weather elements and risk of theft.
In certain cases, the effort to dispose off old items being replaced nullifies the convenience of purchasing items online
03. Research & Learning
During the earlier stages of the design process, I worked closely with my product managers and design/research partners to sketch and whiteboard concepts and flows. As we progressed, I translated these ideas into high-fidelity design compositions, leveraging existing design patterns on Walmart's Living Design Language to accelerate the design process.
To better understand the user journey, we created a Customer Journey Map, laying out the journey and formulating hypotheses based on user behavior. This allowed us to gain insights into the user's experience and identify pain points, enabling us to develop design solutions that were tailored to their needs.
Customer Journey Map
Sketch solutions:
Earlier design process involved sketching and white‐boarding concepts and flows with my PM and design / research partners.
Later in the process I translating these directly into hi‐fidelity design comps. Since I was working with many existing design patterns on Walmart living design language, it was relatively easy to move straight into hi‐fidelity designs.
From the 1st round user study we have identified those direction and started exploration:
1.All shoppers expected to understand the service offers before adding items to cart. They expected to find some information about delivery services on item page, in order to make decisions.
2.Shoppers expected delivery and other services (installation, assembly) to happen on the same day. Some acknowledge that services might be provided by different companies.
3.Most shoppers did not understand what White Glove terminology entailed. Some subjects believed it referred to an "extra special care" type of delivery
Project outcome
As a result of white glove delivery project, after launching after three months, this service helped whole bundled services improve rates at par with industry, Home services and care plan attaches rate increased by ~18%. Based on the first three month testing data, The Launch of the White glove delivery services is expected to add an estimated $4-5 Mn on an annualized basis ( based on already launched annual plan of $25 Mn in care plans CP, and the test result ran for half year)
Reflection and takeaway
Through this project, I learned the importance being humble and learn from users and different internal teammates, stakeholders. It would change how we frame the project, even by a couple years would change our perspective on the designs. Aside from this, the project allowed me to have a chance to practice to communicate and collaborate with a large group of people, I realize not only crafting a great work but collaborate with team to inject insight and delight into the design approaches grounded in the sector, focus on touchpoint connected to customer journey also helps design team as a indispensable sector of this project, to help enhance our delivery journey and providing a moment of delight to our customers.
More detail of project 💌