How might a rural Pennsylvania snowboard manufacturer offer a superior customer experience?
Beginner & intermediate snowboarders shopping for a new board
Gilson Snow is an ecommerce direct-to-consumer ski & ride company creating made-to-order decks and skis. By bypassing distributors, Gilson has created a close-knit, passionate community; however, it has low brand recognition.
In pursuit of addressable audience growth, improved onsite conversion rates, and increased revenue, Gilson was interested in exploring ways it could augment its existing product-service system.
Hmmm...Let's lean into this
I conducted interviews with snowboarders in the market or who had recently purchased a new board. I wanted to uncover action triggers, motivators, and key pain points during the shopping and first ride journey. I uncovered the following underserved opportunities:
1. Address my pain points around finding the right board
2. Make me smarter as I get ready for the mountain
3. Help me celebrate a momentous board upgrade
After mapping Gilson's assets and my persona needs, I developed 11 ideas across 4 dimensions of the customer experience: shopping, on-mountain, off-season, and community. I prioritized with my team based on difficulty to implement and importance to Gilson, considering such factors as audience reach, scalability, and value created across stakeholders. Client feedback helped us validate our prioritization assumptions.
"I imagine that we lose customers who aren’t sure which board would be best for them, and do not feel comfortable reaching out to us to ask."
- Gilson
Let's go digital
Our top concept, a shopping quiz, addressed our unmet rider needs, would be cheap to test and deploy, and would directly impact Gilson's ecommerce conversion funnel. I created a concept video to share with the client, outlining the service roadmap and value across stakeholders.
Within the service blueprint I laid out the foundations for integrating the service into Gilson's existing workflow. To enable the client to test the value of a "minimum viable service," I kept the core of the service minimal but included areas for additional value creation in future iterations.
Everything is service design
Upon delivery, Recommend My Ride was under consideration for implementation by Gilson Snow. We also turned in our service blueprint, asset mapping, and research deliverables
to Gilson to advance their understanding of the customer journey and foment new customer acquisition strategies.
My favorite part of this project was applying the service concepts of dematerialization and density to deconstruct Gilson's assets and reconstruct a
powerful experience that generates rich data and experiences for both Gilson and their customers. It pushed me to become an avid advocate of service design, which enhances
even the best products.
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