Korin Mitrová

AI-powered synthetic data is gaining attention due to its ability to simulate people's behaviour and preferences at a lower price. According to a recent survey, 81% of marketers said they use or intend to use generative AI to generate synthetic data. Synthetic data forms the basis for creating 'synthetic users' that model how your actual users could respond or interact. These methods can be handy for rapid testing, pattern recognition, and generating hypotheses when time, budget, or user access is limited.

As this topic gains traction, it's helpful to ask: What are we learning from synthetic data? How reliable are synthetic users' answers? And can they ever replace talking to real people?

In user research, we aim to understand why and how people make sense of their context, which they continuously co-construct while it simultaneously shapes their behaviour, expectations, and decisions. Each of our methods, from lab experiments to ethnographic fieldwork, uncovers different insights and has its limitations. With this in mind, our team has recently compared synthetic and real respondents during research activity, reviewed emerging studies and the latest tools, and examined what synthetic users can and cannot tell us.


How Synthetic Users Are Created

Synthetic users are built by AI models trained on existing data. Some rely on statistically likely patterns to generate "typical responses"; others use large language models (LLMs) trained on vast datasets. In practice, these two approaches are often combined. The process begins with data based on observed human behaviour, which is recorded, cleaned, and usually interpreted before being fed into the model. The theory is that LLMs encode general behavior patterns, with the proper prompts and data inputs, and can mimic how real people might respond.

Companies enrich AI with their internal data, like customer records or past research logs, to make these simulations better reflect a particular audience. However, insights from synthetic data are shaped by the training data, not by observing live events in real-time, treading a fine line between simulating and discovering new insights.


The Reality Check on Validation

Validating synthetic users against real behaviour remains challenging. Minor changes to how they are built or trained can produce different results. There are no clear industry standards for testing the quality of the models, and little transparency regarding how commercial versions are developed.

A 2023 analysis by researchers at Columbia and Stanford found that OpenAI models tend to exhibit liberal, educated viewpoints, which are likely influenced by the training data and human feedback used to fine-tune them. Another study by James Bisbee in 2024 showed that synthetic users tend to exhibit less variety. They can be susceptible to the wording of questions (prompts) and may not remain consistent over time. Similarly, our recent side-by-side comparisons revealed significant differences between commercially available synthetic users and real users, particularly in response to experience-based or category-choice questions. They tended to mimic simple rating-scale answers more closely.

A 2023 study from Stanford and DeepMind trained AI 'digital twins' on 1,000 in-depth interview transcripts to "develop" their personalities. When tested using well-established psychological surveys such as the Big Five, the digital twins' responses matched those of their human counterparts 85% of the time, outperforming simpler persona or demographic-based models.

Rather than true "thinking", the twins relied on pattern recognition, drawing on well-known correlations in Big Five personality psychology and interview cues. While they performed well on standardised, research-backed assessments, they struggled to generalise beyond them (e.g., predicting behaviour in strategic games). Yet this is precisely what strategic product and service design demands: insight into shifting realities that rarely fit standardised frameworks.


Understand the Trade-Offs


Bias in, bias out

A primary concern is that synthetic users are trained on existing data. If that data is skewed or incomplete, synthetic models risk recycling and amplifying it.


Missing Outliers

Synthetic users reflect statistically likely "average" behaviour. However, in user research, breakthroughs often come from understanding the outliers—users with uncommon needs or edge-case frustrations that expose hidden issues.

Think of Netflix: Their game-changing decision to drop late fees (and eventually pivot to streaming) was sparked by listening to a handful of frustrated users, not a broad trend. Synthetic users often miss these margins where innovation might thrive.


Plausible Answers, False Assumptions

Suppose a factor relevant to your research was not included in the AI’s training data, whether because it was overlooked, unmeasured, or not yet recognised. In that case, it will remain invisible to a synthetic user. They cannot anticipate behaviour in new contexts or identify emerging needs. The catch? They may still produce plausible answers but lead to misguided design decisions.

In a simulated pricing test, real users reacted directly to a price. By contrast, a synthetic user inferred meaning (e.g., a higher price equals better quality) because this association appeared in its training data. Even if a key variable isn’t present, they may still generate confident responses; if a pattern is typical, they might wrongly apply it to new situations.


No Contradiction and Emotional Depth

Synthetic users lack connection to the broader social and cultural context real people shape and are shaped by, a relational dynamic inaccessible to models trained solely on data. Humans change their minds, contradict themselves, and find it hard to explain why. Synthetic users don’t experience emotion, hesitation, or cognitive load, nor can they reflect tonal shifts. While this 'smoothness' and ‘sycophantic’ responses lacking critical nuance may seem appealing, contradictions often provide the most valuable insights. Unlike humans, they don't have lived experiences such as tensing up when an interface recalls a past mistake. In our comparative study, participants linked voice interface frustrations to past failures, a link absent in synthetic responses.


The Validation Gap

When a synthetic user supports your assumptions, how do you validate them? In user research, we triangulate findings using diverse methods and follow-up questions. We are looking for gaps between what people say and what they do, as behaviour often diverges from self-reported intentions and values. You get a narrative with synthetic users, but there's no actual behaviour to observe, limiting your ability to verify the "insight."


Missing the bigger picture: why relationships are key

Our study explored whether real-world habits (like using meditation or language apps outside cars) would translate into interest in new settings, precisely, in-car functionalities.

Real users revealed strong connections: established habits and recent relevant experiences in cars (like needing urgent information) boosted interest in related new car functionalities. However, not all strong habits carry over to a car—context matters—and understanding this nuance helps to pinpoint what will and won't work.

Synthetic users showed none of these patterns. Their answers lacked internal coherence—correlations were flat or missing as if different people answered each question (Figure 1).

Without these relational links, it's hard to answer key strategic questions like "Who is this for?" or "What drives their interest?" While simulations might mirror general trends, they miss the coherence crucial for segmentation and targeting. Habits, expectations, and context and their interconnections shape actual user behavior—connections that synthetic data can't yet replicate.


How to Use Synthetic Users

Don't replace—augment. Use synthetic users to complement research. Use them to generate initial hypotheses and prepare more effectively for fieldwork and studies with actual end users.

Beware of the efficiency illusion. Creating a reliable synthetic user set still requires a solid base of actual user data. Use triangulation to identify contradictions, gaps, and creative workarounds that synthetic insights will likely miss. Consider the efficiencies you are gaining and where you are adding necessary (or extra) steps.

Beware of black-box solutions. Ask how and by whom the synthetic users were generated, what datasets the model was trained on, the modeling techniques used, and the tool’s capabilities and limitations. Assess credibility by examining its validation processes and any third-party peer reviews.


Conclusion

While synthetic users offer speed and scalability, they are not yet capable of fully replicating the complexity of human behavior, including emotional and strategic responses shaped by evolving context.

Synthetic user platforms show promise for early-stage tasks such as exploring trends or generating hypotheses, but their value depends on the quality of real-world data. Many of these platforms are still in the experimental stage. As researchers, we assess where and when they can be integrated into our research toolkit. Considering business goals and risks, we evaluate what they can deliver — and, equally importantly, what they cannot.

Without validation and scrutiny, synthetic users may overlook game-changing insights, leading to costly strategic missteps. In high-stakes situations like new domains, critical user flows, or early-stage innovation, insights based on real human experience remain invaluable.

Need help setting up your research activities? Feel free to reach out.




Go further: Download our synthetic data research checklist

This checklist guides the critical evaluation of models that simulate user behavior or generate insights. It emphasizes the importance of high-quality, inclusive data, sound modeling, internal consistency and transparency.











Can AI-powered synthetic users replace research with real humans?

Dominika Babulicová

While nutrition is one of the factors that can support a patient's recovery, in post-Soviet hospitals, it's more of a bad joke. That’s why I was surprised when news started spreading from the small Czech town of Nymburk that the local hospital cafeteria started serving salmon, bun bo nam bo, or Jerusalem artichoke soup. Despite having to meet the same nutritional and financial constraints as any other facility, their kitchen managed to significantly improve the food service and the overall experience for both patients and staff. So I looked into what they did differently.


Food as a systemic symptom

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced restaurants to shut down, Nikolas Kratěna's new restaurant was no exception. A cook who had previously worked at the chain Ambiente and the Hilton hotel, decided to bridge the difficult period by taking a job in a hospital kitchen. But the environment he encountered was completely different from the commercial kitchens he knew. The hospital kitchen relied heavily on pre-made and instant ingredients, accepted near-expired supplies from vendors, lacked standard procedures, and everyone did things their own way, regardless of outcomes.

The unappetizing food was just a symptom of broader systemic issues – the kind you’ll find in most organizations, even commercial ones. On the surface, things might look like they’re working. The brand delivers a product or service, but a great deal of value is being lost. Focused performance eludes because employees waste energy on inefficient tasks, and innovation stalls due to lack of motivation or support for experimentation. Ironically, productivity and creativity as essentials for long-term success are what every company expects from its workforce. Yet few know how to measure and consciously improve these factors.


From chef to system designer

Kratěna initially tried to teach restaurant techniques to his colleagues, but they resisted. His talent and the growing tensions were noticed by the head of HR, who, together with the hospital director, offered him ownership of the kitchen operations. That sparked – albeit unintentionally – what turned out to be a textbook example of how employee experience can be transformed.

Employee experience (EX) is a holistic approach to talent management that considers everything an employee encounters throughout their time in an organization. It isn’t about massages, darts, or a fridge full of beer in the corporate kitchen. It’s about the conditions that directly impact an employee’s performance. Whether the workflows they follow are optimal, whether they have the right tools for the job, and ultimately, whether their work creates value for the end customer and contributes to the viability of the company.

EX can be purposefully designed, just like customer experience – by shaping the environment, tools, and interactions that support employees in prospering in their work. Designing employee experience means consciously crafting all touchpoints to support performance and engagement. Only when employees have their needs met (tools, procedures, training, recognition, collaboration, meaning) can they create value for customers and, by extension, for the business. While Kratěna isn’t a designer, his intuitive approach after taking over the kitchen closely followed design principles.


How to design employee productivity

When something’s not working, workers usually feel it – it drains them, slows them down, or complicates their performance. But articulating the problem in a way that colleagues or superiors understand and are willing to help solve is a different challenge. Here are a few tips to identify and address problem areas, no matter whether you’re in a managerial or operational role.


1. Create an employee service blueprint

Start by mapping the employee journey, similar to how you’d map the customer journey. Go beyond the basic phases of recruitment, onboarding, development, and exit. Instead, detail the actual workflow or create a service diagram of how employees interact with customers. This helps reveal blind spots where productivity drops, costs rise, or errors occur.

Download our service diagram template and map out what your employees experience during their workday: what tools they use, where they encounter obstacles, and where energy or motivation is lost. This is exactly what Kratěna did – he analyzed the current state of the kitchen and identified where skills, structure, and human potential were lacking.


2. Look for frustration points

Focus on why things are happening. Instead of asking “Are you satisfied?” try to find out which tasks are unnecessarily difficult or confusing – and why. You can also observe your colleagues at work, but make it clear you’re not evaluating their performance. You’re there to understand obstacles and unmet needs, so you can design better tools, processes and channels they use.

Kratěna had the advantage of firsthand experience in the kitchen. He knew where the pain points were, and his commercial background helped him implement quick fixes. He changed suppliers, hired professional cooks, and introduced simple but nutritionally balanced recipes.


3. Ask for feedback from colleagues

To ensure your changes will actually improve things, ask for feedback. It proved eye-opening for Kratěna as well. Encouraged by early wins, he rolled out the new menu across the entire hospital – only to be told by nurses from long-term care that elderly patients weren’t eating his modern dishes and had to be served nutritional supplements for three days.

That’s when he realized the kitchen needed partners like nutritional therapists to perform well. He also trained the staff at individual hospital departments in proper food service techniques, so patients could fully enjoy the dining experience. That’s how good employee experience spills over into customer experience.


4. Loosen decision-making constraints

Identify where employees need more freedom, resources, or information to make good decisions. This works both ways. Top-down, like when the hospital leadership put their trust in a motivated and capable chef, and bottom-up, when Kratěna advocated for increased investment in ingredients and staff.

In Nymburk, food began to be seen as part of patient care. Today, the hospital allocates twice as much budget to meals. The team regularly attends internships in top restaurants, and Kratěna helps his colleagues grow by giving them more competences. He handed over the head chef role to his colleague Mikuláš to help him gain leadership experience, while stepping into a more supportive role himself.


5. Test small changes quickly

Don’t start with big projects, test small tweaks and measure what actually helps. This approach makes process, tool, culture, communication, and leadership changes more acceptable and easier to implement.

Together with dietitians, Kratěna worked department by department, tailoring menus to specific needs. Maternity patients got meals supporting lactation, also diabetics and patients with swallowing difficulties got appropriate diets. He focused on clearly defining expectations and gathering regular feedback, from both colleagues and patients. This created an environment of mutual trust and shared responsibility, prepared to flex with whatever the future brings.


EX as a base for business growth

Today, Kratěna’s hospital kitchen produces meals on par with quality restaurants. The result isn’t just satisfied patients, but new revenue streams as well. The trained staff have improved the operation and menu of the hospital cafeteria, which now enjoys greater attendance, and its good reputation has brought interest in delivery. The hospital sends 50 portions a day to the local nursing service, which has also expressed interest in covering the entire operation, for which the kitchen is not yet dimensioned.

Designing the employee experience has significant potential to scale services and deliver tangible business impact. We saw this in our work with electronics retailer NAY, where improving the sales platform helped unify and boost omnichannel performance. Merging service design with employee experience design is a powerful way to drive successful change:

 * Using employees as a limited sample of users enables you to validate concepts and test solutions in a controlled live environment and identify gaps.
 * Introducing an internal tool or process first allows the employees to become familiar with the system before it's rolled out to customers.
 * Focusing attention on employees sends a positive signal to the organization and helps increase their loyalty and commitment to the employer.


A recipe against stagnation

A design-led approach offers proven methods to intentionally and systematically improve internal processes. Employee experience and better services don’t have to be a matter of luck or gut feeling like in the case of the chef from Nymburk. You can start on your own and experiment with various design tools, such as our Service Blueprint. You’ll get faster results if you bring in experienced experts. Or, take the longest but most sustainable path by building your own in-house team of experience designers who will improve both the customer journey and the experience of their colleagues. You can assess what the best approach is for your company in this short 6-question CX maturity test.

Employee experience is about systematically removing barriers and creating an environment where performance happens because of the system, not despite it. It can also serve as a lever for raising market standards or as an ESG tool. Although Nikolas Kratěna no longer works in a hospital, he’s now being invited to other healthcare facilities because food has become an informal indicator of how well an institution cares for both its patients and its staff. Which part of your internal process could be such a game changer?

Want to improve your customers' experience? Start with employee experience first

Kamil Zahorjan

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is one of the most widely adopted metrics for measuring customer satisfaction. Its cornerstone question—"How likely are you to recommend us?"—yields a straightforward numerical result that companies find easy to analyze and act upon. Proponents value NPS for its ability to identify trends and pinpoint brand advocates among their customer base. However, its relationship with revenue growth is more nuanced than many realize.


Connecting NPS to revenue growth

Net Promoter Score continues to demonstrate a strong connection to revenue growth, according to multiple research studies. The London School of Economics' 2019 study revealed that companies in the top NPS quartile achieved 20 % higher revenue growth than those in the bottom quartile, while Frederick Reichheld's seminal research in Harvard Business Review showed businesses with NPS scores between 50-80 experienced revenue growth 20-60 % higher than competitors. In the retail sector specifically, research by the Temkin Group (2016) found that every 7-point increase in NPS correlates to a 1 % revenue growth.

The financial impact of promoter customers is equally compelling. The Temkin Group's analysis revealed that promoters generate 1.5x more revenue than detractors, while LSE's study found they stay with companies 50 % longer (6.2 years vs 4.1 years) and demonstrate 2.6x higher customer lifetime value. Particularly striking are findings from the B2B software sector (de Haan et al., 2017), showing that companies with high NPS (>70) achieve 23 % higher renewal rates and 13.9 % average revenue growth compared to 6.1% for low-NPS companies. These findings collectively reinforce NPS's position not just as a satisfaction metric, but as a reliable insight into business growth and customer loyalty.

In other words, a company’s NPS can be a good insight into future growth. Measuring this metric not only serves as a measure of the success of your CX investments, but also helps predict future sales, revenue growth, and bottom line retention. However, this relationship is stronger in some industries than others. That’s why it’s important to benchmark your results against your competitors.


How companies use NPS

Taylor & Hart: A London-based custom engagement ring jeweler, adopted NPS as their core metrics. Further research revealed that "detractors" and "passives" were reluctance to purchase online without seeing rings in person, prompting the company to focus on exceptional service through dedicated consultants. By acting on this feedback, they enhanced customer satisfaction, leading to a doubling of their revenue.

Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific: By analyzing their NPS data, Wolters Kluwer identified a significant correlation between rising NPS and improved customer retention. This insight enabled the company to implement targeted initiatives, resulting in increased profitability and revenue. For example, developing proactive check-in protocols at strategic points in the customer journey.

Dr. Max: In our recent Minimum Viable Podcast episode, Chief Marketing & Customer Officer Jana Kutlíková talked about how their chain of pharmacies uses NPS to benchmark individual stores to identify under-performing customer experience. To understand the "detractors" better, the company follows up the rating with a qualitative call with the customer. This process allows them keep the experience across the chain consistent while driving revenue growth.


Downsides of NPS as a customer metric

While NPS is widely used, there are common concerns regarding its reliability. Critics often point to response bias and its impact on company goals. NPS has limitations that must be understood and communicated effectively. When used in isolation, without qualitative data and behavioral metrics, it fails to capture the complete customer experience. Additionally, it requires a sufficiently large sample size to obtain statistically relevant results.

NPS can also overlook valuable insights by categorizing ratings into three groups (promoters, passives, detractors), thereby ignoring passive respondents who may still contribute significantly to revenue. Passive customers are often on the verge of becoming promoters or detractors, making them critical for targeted interventions. Furthermore, if measured only at a general level, it cannot capture satisfaction with specific product or service aspects.

However, companies that effectively implement NPS focus less on the absolute score and more on identifying patterns by combining it with other metrics. This approach provides a more complete picture of customer experience, allowing businesses to use NPS as an early indicator of growth.


How to avoid NPS being a vanity metric?

As mentioned earlier, measuring NPS is just the beginning. Knowing how to leverage this data effectively is crucial. The score itself is merely an indicator, not a complete solution. Here’s how to extract genuine value from your NPS:

1. Look beyond the numbers: If you focus only on numerical evaluations, you may miss the bigger picture. Always include a follow-up question: "What led you to give this rating?" These qualitative responses reveal more accurate customer experience and provide context for your numbers. You can also supplement this with user interviews. The story behind the score holds more value than the score itself.

2. Pay attention to passive customers: Analyze why they're not fully convinced of your value proposition. Their feedback can highlight opportunities for improvement and reveal subtle enhancements that could convert them into promoters.

3. Analyze trends over snapshots: Tracking trends over time is more valuable than analyzing single data points. A declining trend demands immediate investigation into root causes. On the other hand, when scores improve, identify the successful initiatives driving this change and replicate them across your organization. Regular trend analysis helps predict future customer behavior patterns.

4. Link NPS to business result: Integrate NPS with other business metrics by linking your NPS data to concrete business outcomes like retention rates, repeat purchase frequency or average order value. This correlation helps validate whether higher scores truly translate to improved customer loyalty and business performance. Understanding these relationships can guide more effective resource allocation.

5. Take action: Don't just measure. Act. When detractors consistently criticize specific aspects of your service, acknowledgment isn't enough. Develop a structured action plan to address these issues, set clear improvement targets, and monitor the impact of your interventions. Create a feedback loop where NPS insights drive tangible improvements in your customer experience.


Key takeaways

 * Research shows a strong correlation between NPS and revenue growth – companies in the top NPS quartile achieve on average 25 % higher revenue growth, with promoters generating 1.5x more revenue than detractors.
 * While NPS is valuable, it shouldn't be used in isolation. NPS alone may not be the most accurate predictor of specific customer behavior, but provides valuable insights when combined with other metrics.
 * To extract real value from NPS data, companies should look beyond raw scores by collecting qualitative feedback, monitoring passive customers and trends over time, connecting NPS to concrete business metrics, and implementing targeted action plans.

NPS is not just a number – it's a tool that, when used effectively, can unlock critical insights into customer behavior, loyalty, and business growth. Companies that go beyond the score, leverage qualitative data, and take meaningful action will see the greatest returns. The real power of NPS lies in how it is implemented. Are you making the most of your NPS insights, or is it just another vanity metric? The choice is yours.


Go further: Choose the right CX metric

Customer experience metrics are key performance indicators used to assess and understand the quality of interactions between a company and its customers. Although there are many articles on the topic, they often lack guidance on choosing the right form or metric and may even contradict each other. That's why we've compiled all the essential information into the CX Metrics Cheatsheet to help you get started.

How does Net Promoter Score impact revenue growth?

The term "omnichannel" treads on thin ice—some see it as just a marketing buzzword, while for others, it has been a game-changer in saving their business. I believe this mixed perception exists simply because many entrepreneurs misunderstand the concept. While in the past, all businesses operated through a single channel; today, it seems natural that every brand is “everywhere”.

Omnichannel customer experience is about integrating all sales and communication channels into one interconnected ecosystem. A customer can start shopping online, continue in a mobile app, complete the purchase in-store, and even return the product via courier—all without losing context, information, or convenience.

However, many brands enter multichannel customer service the wrong way and for wrong reasons. Sometimes, they do it to mimic competitors ("We immediately need an app, too!"), other times, it’s an attempt to jump on a potentially trending channel ("Trust me, voice assistants are THE future!"). And more often than not, brands view omnichannel as a cost-cutting measure—trying to automate customer support, reduce in-store staff, and so on.

Omnichannel is about value addition, not cost reduction.

— Harvard Business Review

The real value of omnichannel only emerges when customer interactions across all platforms are designed to create a smoother overall journey. Those who implement it correctly are not just building a sales system but an ecosystem where customers feel comfortable and want to come back.


The core (customer) problem

The American brand Warby Parker launched in 2010 as an e-commerce platform aimed at providing an alternative to expensive prescription glasses. Customers could choose five frames, have them delivered to their home for five days, and return the ones they didn’t like. By eliminating intermediaries in the purchasing process, the brand significantly lowered frame prices, and its customer base grew rapidly—but not just because of the cost savings. The Home Try-On concept addressed a fundamental customer pain point that competitors had overlooked: How do you choose frames from home when glasses look entirely different on a real face than on a model? If you wear prescription glasses, have an asymmetrical face, or a crooked nose (like me), you know the pain is paining.

A few years later, when traditional eyewear giants were questioning whether to maintain physical stores in the age of growing e-commerce, Warby Parker did the opposite—it opened its first physical store. Today, they operate nearly 300 stores with a goal of reaching 900. This seemingly counterintuitive move wasn’t about following competitors but about meeting unfulfilled customer needs. Conversations with customers revealed that many wanted to buy from Warby Parker but lacked a valid eye prescription. This insight led the brand to invest in physical locations—not because competitors had them, but because competitors were failing to meet market expectations. The eye diagnostics service, added to the low frame price, further strengthened Warby Parker’s competitive advantage. After its success in stores, the brand also designed an eye diagnostics alternative for its app, removing the last barriers to purchase for fully digital customers.

Warby Parker develops other services in its omnichannel experience based on the challenges faced by significant customer groups. For example, they discovered that three-quarters of in-store visitors had previously browsed the online shop. Store associates noticed that customers would bring handwritten notes with frame names—or, conversely, would save links to glasses they liked in-store as notes or in an app to consult with someone or check their insurance coverage. In response, the brand better connected the customer and sales environments. Store associates can see which products a customer has added to their favorites and send links to selected frames or face photos via email. All of this contributes to Warby Parker’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 86, the highest in the segment and far above other categories.


Two examples from Slovakia


NAY

We tackled a similar situation with NAY, Slovakia’s largest electronics retailer. The brand had two key advantages: knowledgeable and helpful sales staff with deep product expertise and a wide network of stores, making expert consultation easily accessible. Customer research confirmed that visiting a store was a crucial part of the decision-making process. Buying electronics is often a major investment, so customers wanted to compare specifications, weigh options, and get expert recommendations.

However, the purchasing decision didn’t always end in-store—customers often needed time to discuss their choice with a partner, consider financing, or decide on extra services like transport and installation. This clashed with sales staff incentives, as their commissions depended on in-store purchases. If a customer left undecided, they were often left without further assistance, disrupting the customer journey. To address this, we redesigned the sales application to integrate seamlessly with the online store—similar to Warby Parker.

Now, sales staff could email customers their selected products, allowing them to complete the purchase online with one click while still earning a commission for the assisted sale. In-store sales platform revenue doubled, upselling of additional services grew by 101 % and total year-on-year revenue across all channels increased by 20 %. Learn more in the full case study on NAY’s service design.


Martinus

Our collaboration with Martinus, the most popular bookstore in Slovakia, started from the opposite end. The brand wanted to redesign its online store to align with the experience of its physical bookstores, for which Martinus has been renowned and still is. To gather inspiration, we went directly to the stores—talking to customers and shadowing the staff to design an online store that functions like a knowledgeable librarian.

This led to the creation of thematic book collections curated by experts in different genres. We revamped the catalog, search function, reviews, and alternative product recommendations to make discovering new books as effortless as it is in a physical bookstore. Additionally, we improved the implementation of supplementary services, such as selecting a book format or sending it as a gift, which were previously lost in the old design. As a result of the redesign, mobile conversions increased by a quarter, upsell in the shopping cart grew by 160 %, and in-store order reservations surged by 380 %. You can read the detailed process in the case study on Martinus’s e-shop redesign.


A truly consistent experience

The goal of an omnichannel ecosystem should be to provide a consistent experience wherever customers naturally interact with the brand. However, consistency doesn’t mean using the same layout and brand elements across all channels, nor that services should be identical in all environments. Instead, they should be complementary—designed around the specific, and often surprising, expectations customers have for each channel or platform.

We’re surrounded by bad examples. Some traditional retailers simply turned their e-shop into a digital version of a paper catalog—without the functionalities customers rely on in the online space. Many companies have completely replaced customer support with chatbots that can’t handle complex issues, leaving customers frustrated. And my personal favorite—government services that allow you to start a process online but still require you to visit an office to complete it. That is not an omnichannel experience.

I believe that if brands focused more on understanding their customers' deepest needs and expectations, they could create better-connected services across all channels and assess the true value of their physical stores. They could also make better decisions about the relevance of their physical stores. And conversely—as Dave Gilboa, CEO of Warby Parker, highlights—one of the key benefits of operating a retail network is the wealth of customer insights a brand can gain through direct interactions.

If the role of physical stores is a pressing business challenge for you, join our discussion on the future of retail. On Thursday, February 20, at the Lighting Beetle* venue, strategic consultant Lucia Ciranová will present an analysis of emerging trends in retail and, in a panel discussion, will interview leaders of Slovak brands MTBIKER, Dr. Max, and Optika ZITA, who are successfully developing their brick-and-mortar stores even in the digital age.

Three case studies on omnichannel consistency

Alžbeta Ivanovičová

In the world of digital design, the Double Diamond model is most commonly used to describe the product development process. It represents perhaps the clearest depiction of how to optimally approach product development. The first diamond represents the process of exploring an idea, and the second focuses on the targeted creation of a solution.

I covered the first phase, the exploration of development ideas, in a previous article. During this phase, the product team evaluates each idea through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The outcome of the exploration is a comprehensive understanding of the idea, including a set of confirmed problems and opportunities, and even prioritization of ideas. Today, we will look at the second phase—how to determine which of these ideas are worth incorporating into development.


How to validate product ideas

Product development ideas should always be validated with respect to your original intent. Validation should be examined from these four aspects:

 1. Do you want to introduce a new service but are unsure if there will be demand? Validate market demand.
 2. Do you want to change the functionality of an existing product and are unsure if it is feasible? Validate feasibility.
 3. Do you want to verify whether a newly designed conversion method makes sense to customers? Validate solution approach.
 4. Do you want to know if your new design will generate more conversions? Validate solution performance.

Clearly define the idea's goal, the opportunities it opens, and systematically confirm (or disprove) individual possible solutions.

Let's look at a simple example:


Idea Definition

[What] What are we solving? What key problem or opportunity does the proposed idea address?

Add the option to pay with Bitcoin in our e-commerce store. We want to be perceived as a progressive e-shop and potentially capitalize on the high value of cryptocurrencies, given that their value increases over time* (*or maybe it doesn't, this is just an illustrative example).

[Who] Who is affected? Who is the target group in this case?

All e-shop customers, but primarily targeting tech-savvy or progressive customers.

[Why] How will we know if we have successfully solved the problem? What exactly do we expect from the idea, and how could we measure it?

Given the high transactional costs of this idea (high cryptocurrency volatility, complex integration into internal processes, security, and reputational risks), we need to estimate whether implementing this feature is worthwhile (what the demand for it will be) and under what conditions we would want to keep or maintain it.


Idea Validation

In this case, we need to identify demand for Bitcoin payments. We create a Fake Door Test and measure whether we achieve at least a 10% CTR when selecting the payment method.


Techniques for Idea Validation

So how do you validate the different aspects?


1. Market demand validation


Fake door test

The goal of a "fake door test" is to determine whether a solution is viable and whether users are interested in it. You integrate a clickable option for the new feature into the existing customer journey. However, the feature does not yet exist, and when users click on it, they are transparently informed that it is still in development. During the test, you measure the CTR (click-through rate).


Landing page test 

Create a landing page showcasing the new service or product. Explain its benefits and prompt customers to take action (call to action). Then drive as much traffic as possible to the page within a set budget and measure the conversion rate. The rate should be at least at the level of your usual conversion rate.


Recruiting early adopters

"Earlyvangelists" can be helpful in idea validation. When planning a new service or product, assemble a group of 6-8 enthusiasts who will provide feedback on a test version. They are a valuable source of regular feedback and likely a gateway to more customers.


2. Feasibility validation

To validate feasibility, you must first gather and analyze requirements and constraints to understand implementation complexity and potential risks. Then, conduct testing on a small sample of users to reveal technical and business risks and determine implementation difficulty. After evaluating the data, propose an optimized implementation plan along with risk mitigation strategies.

Example: Changing the order of search results based on different product scoring parameters in an e-shop (e.g., older products with higher stock availability appear higher in search results).


3. Solution approach validation


Prototypes

The purpose of prototypes is to quickly verify the feasibility of a solution. Prototype validation typically includes:

 * First impression test (does the solution address the problem?)
 * Usability test (can users complete the task?)
 * Value test (does the solution have proven value for the user?)
 * Value discussion (under what conditions would the solution be valuable to the respondent?)

Prototypes should be tested with minimal time and investment. Sometimes, even validated prototypes fail in real operations.


Wizard of Oz

Provide the service as if it were functioning, but perform all the work manually in the background. This method allows you to realistically test how users would interact with the real service without fully developing it. Users should not detect the trick during testing.


4. Solution performance validation

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is more of a company culture question, but for businesses with at least 1,000 conversions per month, A/B testing design changes in performance channels makes sense. The goal is to prove that the new solution is statistically better or at least does not worsen performance.

A/B Testing is one of the more expensive methods in Product Discovery but is still cheaper than implementing a non-functional or suboptimal solution. Live Data Prototypes can also be used for performance validation. However, this requires implementing the solution and testing it in live operations with a limited number of users (e.g., 10%).


From ideas to the roadmap

There are many ways to validate a new idea. We have compiled 30 experiments that we use daily. Among them, you will find both complex and simple methods that can help you validate your ideas.

In the sea of product ideas, how to recognize the most beneficial ones?

Viktor Šmidák

Dr. Max has the largest network of stores in Slovakia, but it is also known for bringing innovations. How do they manage the satisfaction of 1.5 million customers, how do they use data and what are their plans for the future?

Today's guest on the Minimum Viable Podcast is Jana Kutlíková, who is in charge of marketing and customer experience at Dr. Max.


Do you know your organization's CX maturity level? Find out in few seconds by answering these 6 questions.




Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more English content, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

To start, a little bit broadly, how big is Dr. Max and how many customers does it serve?

So overall Dr. Max consists of online and offline. Within offline, it's our pharmacies. Currently we have 421 and we can say that we are in every district, which we are very proud of. Then within online we have of course coverage within the whole of Slovakia in terms of delivery. In terms of the number of pharmacies, we are the largest in Slovakia.

How many customers do you serve?

We can measure this by the number of receipts. And then of course we measure how many customers we have in our loyalty program. An active customer for us is a customer who buys within twenty-four months and currently we are above the number of one and a half million. Customer care is a motto for us, we try to be number one in care and always bring something more to our patients and customers.

I hear a little bit in that that one of your goals is to cover the whole country, to have dominance in the market.

Yes, it is a long-term goal. Of course, the competition is still there and is big, but for us it's still like bringing something extra. For us it's availability, of course price and always bringing something extra in care. Currently, the pharmacy is the most accessible place of healthcare.

So when I'm sick and I have a runny nose, where do I go, I go to the pharmacy, only then do I visit the doctor. So this is how we approach it, that we are like the first entry point in case of illness.

What types of customers do you perceive, how do you categorize them?

We categorize online customers on the one hand. Secondly, there are our customers, whom we divide into 2 largest segments, namely prescription customers, then there are ordinary passers-by and last but not least, those who are dealing with some non-acute problem - they need nose drops, vitamins and so on. So we also have our pharmacies divided. We have pharmacies that you see on the street, then there are shopping pharmacies and then there are pharmacies that are in hospitals or clinics, so there is also a different group of patients there.

Do you also divide these customers socio-demographically, that you have them precisely named, that this is some kind of profile of his? Or are they rather shopping modes, that these people simply move from one mode to another?

When we talk about pure age, pensioners are more sensitive to the price. So we try to adapt the offer to them. But as for over-the-counter customers, we of course sort them into customer groups based on their shopping behavior, value and basket composition.

When the NPS is below 70, we really actively work with it

How do you know how to put together the product portfolio at a specific store?

So those outpatient pharmacies are more prescribed, there their stock availability is also adapted based on what doctors are in the given hospital. But on the other hand, when our pharmacies are in the shopping mall, we try to have a wider offer there and there, for example, we also place dermocosmetics and there the portfolio is larger. So we monitor the purchases of each pharmacy and we are also enabled by such a system that you can reserve medicines online with us.

This means that the pharmacist will issue it to you within an hour. There you can see which pharmacy has it and if there is a greater interest in some medicine, we will pre-stock this pharmacy.

What data about customers do you process? How do you know they are satisfied? What are your pillars based on which you make action plans?

As part of our customers, we have the Dr. Max Club. Whoever is a member of the club, of course, receives benefits and we "interview" these members after each purchase through a satisfaction questionnaire. Based on this purchase, we ask him about the NPS, whether he was satisfied with the purchase and whether he would actually recommend this pharmacy to his friends. And then there are things like whether he was satisfied with the pharmacist's approach, whether the pharmacy had the product that she needed and so on and so forth. So we have it divided into larger sections.

I personally don't think that a pharmacy, for example, is the place where we would now place tablets. The goal is, of course, to convert as many patients as possible who are not members to become members so that we have data about them. Then we subsequently work more with the phase of those "detractors". We then communicate with those detectors through our call center.

What else can you do with the data other than calling detractors?

Each pharmacy has its own NPS and we are dedicated to improving it. When there is long-term dissatisfaction in some pharmacy, then of course we work with the regional director to continue working with that pharmacy and it is not just some kind of fluctuation. When the NPS is below 70, we really actively work with it to make it as good as possible. We talked a lot about the data and I'm interested in how important this data is for Dr. Max's top management. It's definitely the topic of the week and I can say that we have it in our annual goals.

We have a very nice example from the beginning of last year, when we were changing our loyalty club, while canceling the previous loyalty points. And by forcing those patients to apply points, it happened to us that we sent those x new customers to the pharmacy to apply those points so that they would not lose them. There, such a thing happened that those customers who shopped online were suddenly dissatisfied with the approach of that pharmacy. At that time, the NPS of pharmacies dropped and it turned out that it was because of online customers who were not used to waiting in line, they had to talk to the pharmacist...

Dr. Max Club has 1.5 million customers. What is the mechanics of how you got so many customers into the loyalty program?

Members have better prices, especially for medicines. Another benefit is our private label, where there are 2+1 promotions only with a loyalty card. They can also participate in competitions. However, the main motivator is the price of the product. Being a member brings benefits and based on the feedback data we can offer customers a tailor-made offer.

For example, if someone regularly buys vitamin C, we will send them information about the discount. The classics are birthday and name day discounts. At the end of the year, we send a summary email about the amount saved, which evokes a good feeling in people.

Is the main primary benefit for you customer data or do you track something else as well?

We definitely monitor commercial parameters. Then definitely also within the measurement of market share. I'm not saying completely, but we can look at it this way. You are making quite significant innovations at Dr. Max, at least that's how it seems to me. I will mention the new Super Dr. Max concept, you do sampling directly at the pharmacy, you have robotization...

Why are you actually doing these innovations?

To put it simply, these things you mentioned give us something extra for patients and secondly, time to devote to them. For example, the robotization of expedition work in our pharmacies. Our ROWA robot saves the pharmacist a trip to and from the warehouse, so he can take care of the customer. Secondly, there are examinations, again something extra.

When you go to the pharmacy, you can measure, for example, CRP and only then go to the doctor if the CRP is elevated. The service we would like to have is vaccination. It will also relieve doctors, because it is something we can do at those pharmacies. So when you go to pick up the vaccine, you can get vaccinated right away with us.

Is this more a matter of increasing revenue for you or is it more a matter of customer care?

We don't charge much for the services. It's really like offering the patient something extra.

We talked about these innovations, how do these innovations help you win in the competitive market?

In loyalty. We know how long the waiting times are for those doctors and when I decide that I'm going to solve some problem, I can solve it in one place and thus build loyalty. And on the other hand, we then have data about the customer, so we can always offer him something extra.

What are the responses to these extra services?

We managed to do the CRP, but the other tests still need time. It is a long-term journey and strategy that the pharmacy provides something extra.

I would like to go back to Super Dr. Max, because it is quite an exceptional concept. Try to tell us what it actually is.

Super Dr. Max is our pilot project of the pharmacy of the future. On an area of 715 square meters, we offer more than 6,000 products from various categories - in addition to medicines and nutritional supplements, there is dermocosmetics, children's products, healthy food, products for animals, electronics, sports aids and much, much more. It was also a test of what the customer and patient are willing to buy in that pharmacy, what wide portfolio can they go to.

We are still trying, rotating the products, looking at the customer behavior. There are consultation zones, we offer body composition analysis with the InBody device. Furthermore, what is there is an additional service of dermo-advice, where we do an analysis of the skin and hair. So it's a comprehensive care of my well-being, that you not only sell me a product, but also give me some analysis of how I'm doing.

What are the first reactions from customers? How do you evaluate Super Dr. Max internally now?

For us, it was a test of the assortment, what we learn and what we don't learn. And I can still say that we are still trying. It was quite a challenge for us to grasp and sell it in terms of marketing, that we have such a thing at all, because customers in Slovakia are not used to it at all, which is the opposite abroad. In the future, we will then open something between a classic pharmacy and Super Dr. Max.

What is the primary mode of purchase? Who is the e-shop for?

For everyone. Of course. But what works very well for us and I can say that it is growing are precisely those reservations at pharmacies, where it is a classic omni channel approach. This means I order online and have it in the pharmacy within an hour. Furthermore, we launched Marketplace in May of last year. There we are still learning what is and what is not, how to do it. We also offer reservations for prescription drugs.

Are you also thinking about expanding services within digital?

We have the Dr. Max consultation, where you can ask the pharmacist a question. It's not instant, but a real pharmacist answers you. Even our articles, which are all on the web, are written by experts. We would never let some copywriter or AI write it.

Do you plan to continue to perhaps bring the pharmacist closer, have a faster response, bring the online space closer to the offline one?

My personal goal is to have a pharmacy in the Metaverse. Today, the legislation will not let go, but definitely yes. We also try to involve pharmacists on maternity leave, and this is not possible in the offline space. So this is how we try to motivate the staff to stay with us, even when they go on maternity leave. We would definitely prefer to have it online 24/7, but currently, in terms of capacity, this is the maximum we can give to patients.

What is your biggest challenge that you would like to solve somehow? We call it a design challenge, i.e. a complex problem that stands before you and you would like to get through it.

As I mentioned, to have a pharmacy in the Metaverse. So for that you need a dose of better legislation. If the legislation wasn't so discouraging, that one could really get carried away and make some kind of pharmacy of the millennium, where everything would be grasped in a different way, that would be very nice in terms of what you nicely called design character and so that our pharmacies really offer something extra, so that patients go there for those services.

So that we are the first choice, that I don't just go for some of my vitamins and for some of my prescriptions, but that I go there because I want advice. I want care and it's also a more pleasant environment than in the doctor's waiting room. Raise the awareness of the pharmacy to a higher level as well. It's more than just a pharmacy, but it's somewhere where that comprehensive care is provided for our patients.

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

In Minimum Viable Podcast, we use relatable language to dive into customer experience design. We invite unique guests to chat about how Customer Experience influences business success. A special thanks to Mojmír Procházka for his production support.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #29: CX in pharmacy

Samuel Švec

Designers always consider the end-user or customer when creating physical or digital "worlds." Their focus is on making solutions desirable and usable. Business design adds another layer to this: ensuring the solution is also profitable.

The latest guest on the Minimum Viable Podcast is Alžbeta Ivanovičová, who has been working in service design and business design for several years. Michal Blažej talks with her about what business design is, how it works in practice, and how anyone can benefit from it.


Do you know your organization's CX maturity level? Find out in few seconds by answering these 6 questions.




Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more English content, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

Today, we’ll talk about something called business design. Where did the concept of business design actually come from?

I think business design has always been around; we just didn’t know to call it that or realize we wanted to call it that. Designers, when creating physical or digital worlds, have always focused on the end customer. They care about whether their design is useful, whether people can use it, and whether they want to use it. That approach is great but has its limitations. Let me explain with an example.

I have pretty long legs. Every time I travel by plane, I think, why can’t budget airlines—or any airline, really—make the seats bigger so I can stretch my legs and feel more comfortable during the flight? But when you look at it from a business perspective, giving passengers more legroom means fewer seats on the plane. Fewer seats mean fewer passengers, which drives ticket prices up.

Then the question becomes, would anyone want to take a weekend trip to Milan if the ticket price skyrocketed? Essentially, business design recognizes that not all customer desires can be met. It puts pressure on designers to align their work with the business context of the company they’re working for.

How can this design approach help businesses?

It can help in three ways. First, it brings structure. It ensures that we don’t stray too far from the business challenge and approach it in a systematic way to solve it effectively.

Second, it fosters understanding among stakeholders—whether customers, employees, or collaborators. It helps everyone see why a particular solution is important and why it’s the best fit for the specific context.

Finally, there’s impact. Business designers are hands-on. They tackle challenges by creating prototypes—concrete solutions—and testing them with customers. Then, they take it a step further by implementing these solutions. This means they cover the entire lifecycle of a service, from creation to integration into the business ecosystem.

You mentioned thinking about problems from a business perspective. Does that mean business comes first in business design, or is the customer still the priority?

In my view, every organization should have a strategy—an idea of where it’s headed—and from that strategy, business challenges naturally arise. When I talk about business challenges, I don’t mean specific issues faced by a single salesperson. I think of them more as goals the organization wants to achieve. Customer insights should serve as inspiration for solving these challenges. So, it’s not about one taking priority over the other; it’s about finding a balance—they go hand in hand.

It sounds like if I have a challenge I can’t solve alone, I’d turn to an external consulting firm. Is business design different in this respect? Is there competition between the two?

Management consulting certainly has its place, and some people excel at it. In my view, the difference is that consulting often relies on tried-and-true solutions or approaches. It’s built on years of experience and proven methods. Business design, on the other hand, tends to be more exploratory and tailored, creating solutions that fit the specific needs and context of the challenge.

I read somewhere that business design focuses more on the top lines of the profit and loss statement, while management consulting focuses on retaining as much of those funds as possible and achieving profitability. From my perspective, business designers are often more integrated within an organization. They create specific solution proposals, prototypes, and meet directly with customers. It's not about providing generic advice. Many times, qualitative or quantitative research guides our thinking, helping us outline the next steps for a project.

What specific problems can business design address?

For example, struggling to retain customers, losing them, or being unable to increase revenue that's stagnating. Or cases where the competition is doing better than we are, or a new product we developed isn’t successful and nobody uses it.

There are also challenges related to organizational structure. For instance, rapid growth that we couldn't manage well, wanting to achieve more but feeling lost, or processes taking too long. Customers might expect changes or innovations that we can’t deliver because of organizational, technological, or other internal limitations.

How can business design tackle such significant challenges?

The approach is key. You use methods that break the challenge into smaller pieces to identify the underlying problems. Then, you systematically search for solutions, test them in practice through experimentation, and implement what works. In medium or large organizations, it’s challenging to validate and sustainably roll out solutions without causing disruption that could create new problems.

How does the analysis differ when addressing an internal organizational problem versus involving management consultants?

I’d say it’s valuable to have insights from consultants to understand the situation objectively.

In organizations, different people often focus on different issues and sometimes forget that they are all working toward a common goal.

What's unique about this approach is that it centers on the customer and their inputs. By analyzing feedback, motivations, needs, dissatisfaction, and expectations—whether through existing sources or customer research—you build a clearer context around the business challenge.

Do you have examples of clients who successfully addressed major challenges using this approach?

One example is our project with the Bratislava Water Management Company. They wanted to improve cash flow by encouraging customers to pay invoices faster and reduce the number of calls to their support center regarding confusing invoices.

We analyzed call center recordings to understand customers’ questions and identified what made the invoices unclear. Based on this, we redesigned the invoices. Then we conducted guerrilla testing in a shopping center, asking people if they understood the new design. As a result, invoice payment times improved, boosting cash flow, and customer experience also got better, as people no longer had to decipher the invoices.

My favorite approach is that when faced with a significant business challenge, you can always refine or narrow the scope of the task. You can either focus on a specific target customer group or specialize in a particular product or service. By narrowing the business challenge this way, you can work much more effectively with the subsequent analysis, research, and solutions.

Don’t you get feedback that narrowing the target audience excludes other users?

We often hear that concern—companies wanting to target everyone. However, I believe there’s always a dominant customer group. Strategically, every company knows who their long-term priority customers are.

Can you share another example of a business problem?

Sure, let’s talk about NAY Elektrodom, the largest electronics retailer in Slovakia. They wanted to shorten the time it took to serve each customer in-store. They felt their process wasn’t efficient enough. We conducted customer research to understand their shopping journey for electronics and also analyzed the in-store service process.

We found a conflict: online sales were competing with physical store sales. Customers viewed buying large appliances as an important decision—they wanted to research in-store, consult with staff, then go home and buy online. This left sales staff frustrated because they lost commission.

We focused on improving the customer experience in the sense that we developed an app that helped sales staff provide better advice and prepared an online order for the customer. The customer received a list of recommended products via email, and the salesperson still earned a commission.

By improving the employee experience, we enhanced the customer experience, shortened service time, and reduced frustration.

Are there any principles on how business design should work?

Our approach always relies on several pillars. One important aspect is customer orientation and all other stakeholders involved. Every project includes a phase where we identify the customer group or determine who will ultimately benefit from solving the business challenge and who will gain value from it.

Then, the second pillar is data, both quantitative and qualitative. We usually use quantitative data to determine the impact or to define the problem. So when we identify the business challenge together with the customer, we also want to know how big it is, whether there is a possibility of return on investment, and if we’ll really make an impact within the organization.

Another important pillar is visualization. We usually try to capture all our findings, whether they’re quantitative or qualitative. For example, it could be a service blueprint or a customer journey map. In this way, we try to visualize the insights so that stakeholders within the organization better understand the sequence of individual steps.

I’ll stop you here for a moment, you mentioned visualization. Why is it important?

Different people within an organization usually focus on different things, and sometimes they forget that they’re all working toward the same goal. And that goal is, let’s say, providing quality customer service. So they’re all co-creating the customer experience. That’s why everything should work together and logically follow one another. When employees look at a visualization, they understand, “Ah, this is where I am, this is my agenda, but it influences these other people and processes within the company.”

And then, another important pillar is prototypes. Once you know the starting point and have some potential solutions, it’s good to create prototypes—small designs you can try out in practice.

Do you have a specific example? I can imagine a webpage prototype, but what if it’s a larger change in organizational processes?

Let’s take an insurance broker as an example. Based on analysis, you realize that customers don’t fully understand the details of the insurance coverage. You can take just this small part and iterate on it. You give these proposals to, let’s say, 10 salespeople and ask them to try out the prototype, and then you ask them how the customers reacted.

Then I also think about A/B testing, which we did with one of our retail clients. How would you handle that?

When you’re dealing with a retail chain with several stores, scaling can be quite difficult. You need to do a lot of tests in one location to determine what the functional model is, and then move on to other locations. But there might also be regional differences. However, you can define certain principles. For example, the product should be displayed in a way that doesn’t get in the way, it should invite the customer to visit your store, and it should be relevant to them.

What should the first step be to get things out quicker and confront them with the user?

You need to identify the business challenge, i.e., what you want to solve. Then, you should be able to define hypotheses related to the issue and conduct either quantitative or qualitative research. After that, you need to ideate possible solutions and create prototypes, and then it’s also good to know how to implement the changes—how to manage that change.

What tools do you use for change management, and how does it look?

We often use stakeholder mapping to understand who all is involved in the business challenge so that no one is left out. If there’s resistance to change, it’s usually because some needs haven’t been heard.

Business design helps to build and maintain a competitive advantage.

It’s also about evangelizing the approach, explaining why we’re doing this and what it should bring. Positive examples are very effective, as well as communication about what has been achieved, and on the other hand, sharing lessons learned from what didn’t work. Being open about this kind of transparent communication tends to work well for us.

The key to all of this is being willing to experiment and learn. And to have persistence, be flexible, and react promptly when something doesn’t go as expected. That’s why communication and involvement from the start are so important—so everyone understands.

Finally, I’d like to look a bit into the future. Is business design the answer to the challenges that organizations might face? Is it a tool for the future?

Yes, for the future, but also right now. You can already work on an organization's business challenges, and there’s no reason to wait.

Business design is something that helps you build and maintain a competitive advantage. So, listening to customers means that you’ll not only serve your existing customer base well but when something changes in that base or a new customer segment emerges, you’ll be able to respond to their needs and innovate your products and services. Plus, thanks to business design, you’ll be able to monitor what’s happening in the market because you’re in direct contact with it.


The full interview with Alžbeta Ivanovičová in Slovak:

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

In Minimum Viable Podcast, we use relatable language to dive into customer experience design. We invite unique guests to chat about how Customer Experience influences business success. A special thanks to Mojmír Procházka for his production support.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #28: Business design

Consumer brands are facing new sources of pressure. Traditional funnels are now crowded with new competitors, including online marketplaces that push prices down. Market leaders set high standards for customer experience, pushing consumer expectations to a new level. AI and algorithms give an edge only to those already strongest. And social commerce has turned even consumers into brands’ competitors.


Positioning through Experience identities

Although brand interactions are evolving, many consumer experiences fall short. Inflation and corporate cost-cutting often mean consumers are paying more, getting less, and dealing with lower-quality services. With rising inflation, consumers are much more picky about which brands deserve their attention and money. Our consumer behavior research reveals that consumers’ decision-making has shifted substantially in the past five years.

In a constantly changing society, evaluating information is increasingly challenging, and the market is oversaturated with products and brands. Therefore, consumers nowadays assess a brand's relevance based on the role it plays in their lives. From our research, we’ve identified how consumers build brand affinity, and based on that, we developed the concept of Experience identities. This model helps brand leaders (whether they’re CEOs or managers at the intersection of product–marketing) understand and respond to these new consumer expectations.


A scale from convenience to surprise

Experience identities reflect a range of customer needs – from simplifying choices to breaking away from monotonous experiences – and suggest the role a brand should play in consumers' lives:

 * Problem solvers make decision-making and daily tasks easier for customers. Think of leaders like Amazon, Ikea, or local company Alza, which offer services that handle as many purchase-related concerns as possible, covering everything from financing to delivery, setup, and returns.
 * Empathetic experts are trustworthy partners who build communities around shared passions. Through their expertise, they engage consumers also beyond the buying phase, securing their place in customers' lives. Examples include Miele's cooking classes or Isadore's community rides for cycling enthusiasts.
 * Responsibility enablers guide consumers to make responsible purchasing decisions, addressing their increasing sensitivity towards ethical business practices, social impact, and product lifecycle. This explains the rise of circular solutions like Vinted, Recup, or Martinus’ book return program, as well as brands with lifetime guarantees like Patagonia.
 * Magic makers bring back a human touch to an increasingly automated customer service. Instead of bland, templated online stores and customer service bots, they deliver a more human touch. For instance, in the fashion industry, you’ll find magic makers offering personal stylists as shopping curators or smart wardrobes in fitting rooms with selected items appearing upon request.

Deciding which experience identity a brand wants to excel in is a challenging strategic decision. One that enables a brand to deliver a clear and meaningful value to the customer, that will be irreplaceable by any other brand.


Brand = communication + experiences

Customers perceive a brand not only through its communication but also through the feelings it evokes through all interactions. This holistic perception of a brand is called brand experience. Brand experience is built on strong analytics – understanding consumers and competitors and identifying untapped opportunities. The experience identity framework allows brands to identify the right approach, whether they’re focused on revenue, market share, or customer retention.

Our report on new consumer expectations offers a deep dive into shopping behavior, key trends, and numerous examples of world-famous and local brands that understand where they stand on the experience identity spectrum. We’ll show you how these brands innovate based on the needs and future expectations of their target audiences, tailoring their entire service portfolio accordingly. After all, it’s the design and quality of customer services that shape how consumers resonate with a brand, giving it a real competitive advantage.

If you'd like to discuss Experience identities in person or have them explained to your colleagues, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Subscribe with your e-mail: www.lbstudio.sk/newsletter

The new reality shapes how consumers perceive brands. How to stay relevant?

When paying taxes, we often feel like we are the state's last priority. We have to study legal paragraphs and use a calculator to figure out what to fill in boxes we don’t fully understand. A few people at the Bratislava City Hall took on this challenge and tried to redesign the tax payment process.

We are starting the fifth season of the Minimum Viable Podcast with Slavo Oslej, who used the service design method to propose a new way for Bratislava residents to pay taxes. Michal Blažej discusses with him what the work of a service designer entails and how to design services that put the customer first.


Do you know your organization's CX maturity level? Find out in few seconds by answering these 6 questions.




Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you by the CX design studio Lighting Beetle*. It's usually recorded in the Slovak language, however, you can read an English transcription of this episode below. For more English content, including case studies and handouts, visit our Journal.

To begin, I’d like to talk to you about the redesign of the tax payment system. Not everyone may be familiar with the project you worked on, so what was the outcome of your work?

Essentially, we looked at the service overall, starting from the first moment—filing a tax return or the real estate tax declaration and then the actual tax payment—so the entire service process. What we delivered was a new form that’s more intuitive and a payment method, so now you can pay the tax directly from an email or from a Bratislava account using Apple Pay. Now, people don’t have to go to the post office to make a payment.

What was wrong before? Why did you take on this project?

It was part of a larger initiative for digital transformation. When I joined the city administration, it was around April 2020, and we got a program from Bloomberg, called Think Big Start Small. We had to choose one service to try and transform gradually from start to finish. We picked the real estate tax because at the time it was the largest transactional service, generating the second-largest revenue for the city. It also had the greatest impact on users. The process was very cumbersome for users; people were paying in ways that were no longer suitable for the modern age.

Whose initiative was this digital transformation within the city administration?

We had electronic services similar to the Slovensko.sk with high-cost development and very few users. We needed to make these services more efficient. Bloomberg helped us organize everything. They encouraged us to start with one service and gradually learn from it, applying those lessons to further transform other services the city offers electronically.

How did you approach this? How was it different from how things were done before?

We started collaborating with Bloomberg right after I joined. What was great was the very broad Discovery phase. For me, it was an amazing moment since it coincided with my onboarding. When you think about it, Bratislava is essentially the largest service provider, from public transport to street lighting to paying for municipal services like pools, sports facilities, etc.

The portfolio of services is huge, and during the Discovery phase, we looked at basic things—what services actually mean to people, what the city provides them, and if they even realize it. We did exit interviews after people completed tasks at the contact center, conducted observations, and ad-hoc surveys in parks. We combined various research methods.

You really focused on understanding who the citizens of Bratislava are and how they interact with the city.

Exactly. We took a broad approach and used a 'Double Diamond' framework. We focused on one service, real estate tax, but the 4-month Discovery phase provided insights that helped us with other projects as well.

For instance, it led us to start working on a new Bratislava.sk website because we noticed people were calling the contact center mainly because they couldn’t find information online. So, these insights directed us to further projects.

This is fascinating, especially the Discovery phase. Balancing the scope of research to avoid becoming too abstract and ensure the research remains valuable. Sometimes research can be too broad, revealing strategic insights that aren’t necessarily actionable. How did you select the takeaways, and how did you present them?

From day one, Bloomberg guided us towards high standards, like making research transparent within the organization. After each stage, we presented our findings to about 300 people, showing them what we discovered.

"The findings from the Discovery phase were that it is very difficult for city residents to handle anything with the local government."

The key findings were that it’s really difficult for city residents to handle tasks with the city administration. Most processes are manual, and people usually have to come in person. Just obtaining information or completing a task online is impossible for many because they don’t have an electronic ID card. Ninety percent of the processes are offline, which causes frustration and bad user experiences.

So, the Discovery phase confirmed that digital services were failing, which led you to work on the city’s digital transformation.

Yes, that was the core issue, but we also explored other areas. After identifying these problems, we moved into a targeted Discovery phase and focused specifically on real estate tax services, from filing the declaration to paying the tax.

So, after the broad Discovery phase, you narrowed it down and selected real estate tax as the service to target. What happened next?

We started working closely with the local taxes and fees department in Petržalka. We conducted interviews with users to understand how the current tax declaration works or doesn’t work for them and what issues they encounter. We also mapped out the current state and tested the existing offline and online forms. When it came to payments, we identified several pain points.

You even observed the back-office operations?

Yes, I spent time in the front-line tax offices and saw that when users didn’t pay their tax, the city would sometimes call them six or seven times to follow up. For example, when the invoices were generated in April and May, they had to be physically sent to the post office and signed. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case. Another issue was that during December and January, when tax declarations are filed, there were 300-400 people daily needing help with the form. The city police even had to manage the crowd.

That sounds familiar. In 2016, we started observing back-office processes and call centers, and the insights we gained were often far more useful than customer interviews.

I completely agree. That’s when we first started using Journey Mapping. We mapped the entire process from filing the declaration to making the payment, identified pain points, and created five concepts ranging from small improvements to full transformation.

One of the first concepts was simplifying real estate tax payments. The second was finding a new way to authenticate users into a digital environment without relying on Slovensko.sk, as only about 6-7% of individuals had access to it. Another concept was helping people fill out the tax declaration through tooltips and nudges. We also considered involving third parties like notaries, lawyers, and real estate agents in helping users complete the form. The final concept was removing the user from the declaration process altogether.

In the end, we decided to focus solely on the payment aspect because it had the greatest impact, and we found a legal loophole that allowed us to test digital tax payments.

What team was behind this whole process?

Back then, it was two or three of us. Mainly our internal team, plus we worked with a service design agency, and they expanded our team with a service designer and an IT architect. Of course, we also had the local tax department involved, and to the extent possible, our IT department, lawyers, and others.

You mentioned you created a service blueprint. It’s not a commonly used tool here, and people often don’t know what it is. What is it, and how did it help you?

We used it to map the as-is state and also to map out an ideal state. What helped me was being able to visualize and fully understand how the service operates.

Another thing was that I could get different groups and stakeholders around one table so that everyone could see on one screen, in one Miro, what impacts the user and their experience. I could see everything holistically — how it works versus how it should work — and thanks to that, I discovered some potential inefficiencies.

What did your service blueprint look like?

If you imagine a customer journey, it shows what the user does to meet their goal or fulfill their need. Above that, we had some evidence or a visual reference of what the user actually sees. Then we had the front-end interactions they might have with our staff or some interface. There was also a technology section, linked to some form.

Below that was the entire backstage. And then there was the technology part that, for instance, sends you a one-time code for logging in, etc. We also had KPI tracking, showing how the user progressed through the service. Thanks to that, we could see where and what we could measure. For example, how quickly payments were made, whether the user chose a QR code or a payment gateway, and how many people clicked on feedback… So, we had the entire service described. Since we all understood how the service worked, we could review everything that might go wrong before and after its launch.

You mentioned that you first launched a closed beta for the payment. What happened next?

Back then, we realized that we could display the tax in a digital environment, but you still had to receive the decision in paper form. That’s how the closed beta unfortunately worked. However, we were able to verify that this method was correct. What else did we need?

The result was that within fifteen days, 72% of payments were made. Previously, over 90% of people had to go to the post office to pay their taxes. Let’s say it was at the post office for 18 days, you had 30 days to make the payment, and then 15 days to finalize it. Altogether, it could take two months. Often, people would stick the paper on their fridge and then forget about it or lose it.

We introduced the payment email, which included a QR code and a payment gateway. If you wanted to see the details, due to tax secrecy, you received a one-time code. You accessed a secure zone where you logged in via a code sent to your phone, and there you could view your tax.

The results showed that people have no issue paying taxes if you make the process easier, and everything moves faster. It’s just another bill to pay.

How long did it take to go from the initial discovery to this point?

One year.

It’s important to recognize how much work goes into creating a simple QR code. Citizens might think, "It’s just a QR code," but it took a year of work.

What’s interesting is that we had 72% of payments within fifteen days. Guess what the percentage was when we told people that if they paid within 15 days, we wouldn’t send them a paper letter?

85%?

94%. So, notice how much value we created for people just by eliminating the need to go to the post office.

By 2022-2023, we had better transactional measurements. We found that 4% of people still wanted to receive paper. In 2023, I understood that there was a willingness on the side of the Ministry of Finance to change the law to allow electronic payments.

We realized that we could change the way taxes were levied. We introduced a notification system, where if you paid by a certain date, you wouldn’t receive anything by mail. It’s similar to paying a fine — once you pay it immediately, you only get a receipt and that’s it.

This year was the first time we applied this, and it’s great to see that it’s working, for instance, in Petržalka and other cities. Petržalka, for example, gave a €5 discount if you paid digitally. After the first year, 50% of people were using it. This applies to property taxes, municipal waste fees, dog taxes, and other smaller fees.

What makes the role of a service designer unique, and what does a service designer bring to the table? Why should organizations have service designers?

I think it’s a very important role. Service designers connect different roles and create multidisciplinarity. They’re also advocates for the user and work to deliver the best possible experience to the user.

But it’s not just about the user experience; it’s also about ensuring that the organization can deliver services as efficiently as possible in terms of time and money. So, it’s a crucial role that puts the user first while managing all the assets together.

What skill set do you think a service designer should have? What would you look for on their CV?

They should have a bit of a researcher in them, to be able to ask the right questions and listen. Visual thinking is also key—being able to draw some synthesis from what they hear during facilitation and collaboration. I’d also look for some project management skills so that they can organize resources and options. And definitely, the ability to think outside the box. It also helps to know what the front end is, and what the back end is, and understand infrastructures.

You had a brief internship in New York and got a glimpse of how not just service design but also innovation teams work. What did you see in New York?

It lasted four days, and every day I was with a different department. What was interesting was that the city had an external team hired from an agency, and they were doing six-month behavioral projects for various New York departments. They focused a lot on communication, and I noticed that using plain language was very important. Using simple language is crucial for services, especially municipal ones.

"It is not only about the experience but also about ensuring that the organization can deliver services as efficiently as possible in terms of time and money."

I also liked that they didn’t work individually but always in teams of three, which ensured good coverage and information sharing. Another day I was with an internal service design team. They had a sister product team, which was relatively small, just three to four people.

It certainly wasn’t for all of New York, but I liked that despite being only three or four people, they had "office hours." That meant every Friday, government employees could sign up with their problems, and they would mentor them. This allowed them to increase their impact. I found that very inspiring.

But what impressed me most was their co-design project, where they hired 12 residents over six months and turned them into designers. They passed on their design skills to the residents, allowing them to go through the design process and create a service for their community that was missing. The result was a multi-generational center focused on digital skills, as many groups in New York only have basic education.

Another thing that comes to mind is when I visited 311, which is a non-emergency call center. They don’t have any front offices where you have to go in person; you just call for everything. They handle 35 million interactions a year, and what’s amazing is that they have a knowledge base of 2,000 questions and can answer in the top 11-12 languages anytime. They even guarantee responses in all world languages within a certain time, which made me think, "Wow!" It’s incredible that they have one place where you can call and solve your issues.

In Bratislava, we managed to create one such service. How could we achieve standard thinking like this in local government or public administration?

This is a very complicated challenge. After these four years, I see the biggest barrier as the ability to not only pass on the know-how but also transfer the operation of existing services to the original owners. Because I only had the role of product owner on loan, and in local government, there’s no such thing as a service owner or product owner.

I’d like to get to the point where one day, we are not just tax administrators, road administrators, or sidewalk administrators, but service providers. Not just bureaucrats, but civic servants.

"Using plain language is crucial, especially for municipal services."

But this is gradually happening. Departments are slowly hiring stakeholders who are also part of the innovation department, meaning they are full-time employees. The same approach is being used for the Bratislava transport company or other city organizations, and it’s spreading.

So people from the innovation team are being sent to other city enterprises?

Yes, or hired. But it’s still centralized in one office. The challenge is to move this forward. In the case of local governments, a large percentage of their effort goes into just keeping things running, leaving little room for development and streamlining. We definitely need more people to gradually transform this.

If someone wanted to become a service designer, what would you recommend?

I had a very broad path, but my first impulse came from design thinking, which kickstarted my journey toward service design. Then I tried it out in practice in telecom, where I had an amazing mentor. After that, I took a course through the Butterfly Effect as a UX researcher, and Bloomberg also helped a lot—it was all learning by doing.

But you can also get close to service design if you’ve been a product owner or anyone who has worked in design, like UX or UI. These are very similar professions that can lead to service design. Fortunately, more and more schools focus on this now as well.

One final question I ask all guests. What is your biggest design challenge that you’d like to solve?

I have two. The first is that this morning, as I was unplugging my phone from the charger, I thought, "We’re soon going to Mars, but our phones still only last one day." The second is scaling the design mindset and approach within organizations.


The full interview with Slavo Oslej in Slovak:

Minimum Viable Podcast is brought to you every two months by the design studio Lighting Beetle*, which focuses on creating an exceptional customer experience.

Design is all around us. Minimum Viable Podcast explores design with a small “d” – the one that looks for solutions to people's problems. In it, together with our guests, we address topics that are related to design, but we normally do not associate with it. Thanks to our production manager Mojmír Procházka for the cooperation.

We are looking forward to every listen, follow, share, and suggestion for improvement. You can send us your tips for interesting personalities with whom we can talk about design to podcast@lbstudio.sk.

Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Podcast #27: Creating better cities

Klaudia Balagová

Humans love telling stories. Whether it's the last chapter of a novel, the climax of a movie, or the goodnight stories from our childhood, endings bring meaning and resolution. However, in the consumer world, the thrill of the new often overshadows the final chapter.

Imagine your printer runs out of ink. You buy a new cartridge, maybe even get an email with installation instructions.The printer resets happily and works again, but now you're left with the old cartridge, unsure what to do next. It’s not as simple as tossing a banana peel.

To address these challenges, an expert in consumer lifecycle endings Joe Macleod proposes “endineering”. It promotes the integration of emotional triggers and actionable steps into the offboarding process, in order to make the end of a consumer journey as engaging and meaningful as was the beginning.

“Businesses have become experts at beginning the consumer journey but often falter at its conclusion.”

With decades of experience in product and CX leadership, among others with the Ustwo design studio, Joe’s work brought him to a realization that the design industry has a serious problem of neglecting consumer journey endings. In 2018, he founded the andEnd studio, the world’s first customer-ending business, and wrote a book called Endineering: Designing consumption lifecycles that end as well as they begin, aiming to redefine the industry standards of how we intentionally conclude consumer journeys.

Having Joe in Slovakia for the final ByDesign conference, we seized the opportunity and booked a private half-day training. Together with a dozen of our clients and partners, we explored how to rethink and redesign consumer journey endings consciously to boost customers’ engagement and satisfaction, brand perception and ecological sustainability.


From circularity to linearity

In the pre-industrial era, the lifecycle of products was naturally circular. Waste was repurposed or reintegrated into the ecosystem. Industrialization, however, shifted this circularity into a linear process. We became adept at quickly buying new items and detached from the consequences of their disposal.

We’ve mastered the art of onboarding with the latest gadgets, services, and experiences. But what happens when their appeal fades? Offboarding – the process of ending our relationship with a product or a service – often falls short, leading to environmental and emotional repercussions. Every product or service promises a better future but the end of this journey is inconvenient and detached from the rest of the experience.


4 key challenges of modern offboarding


1. The emotional disconnect

In modern consumerism, the emotional bond between the product and the consumer often breaks apart during offboarding. Where once there was excitement and engagement, there's now confusion and detachment. This disconnect is mirrored in how we dispose of products—whether it’s the old phone that ends up in a drawer or the plastic packaging tossed without a second thought.


2. Loss of identity

The specific identity of the product or service we buy vanishes at the end. When it comes to shoes, you are not buying “just” shoes. It’s the specific brand you like, a specific type with a suede dark red stripe on the sides, ideally buying them in a retail store where the staff knows you. However, when you are throwing them out, they become just another piece of trash, stripped of their individuality.


3. Anonymity of actions

As consumers, we’re seldom aware of what happens to products once they leave our hands. The actions of disposal are anonymized, leading to a lack of accountability and engagement. This anonymity contributes to this cycle where we’re excellent at acquiring new things but lack responsibility when throwing away the old ones.


4. Complexity of neutralization

The process of neutralizing waste – whether it’s recycling or disposal – is often complex and unclear. For instance, while we know an apple core will rot naturally, what about the myriad materials in an electronic device? The complexity of these products makes their disposal challenging and confusing for the average consumer.


Designing for continuity

To create a more cohesive and responsible consumer experience, we need to reintegrate emotional and practical aspects into offboarding. Create a meaning and continuation in the end. Here’s how some companies address this challenge:

 * Creating emotional connections: Companies like IKEA are starting to design coherent end-to-end experiences like second-hand stores and take-back programs to make the end of the product lifecycle as thoughtful as the beginning.
 * Promoting empowerment through design: Fairphone empowers users to replace parts like batteries and cameras by themselves at home, fostering a sense of ownership and continuity. By making the end phase an integral and engaging part of the product life cycle, companies can help consumers feel more connected and responsible.
 * Leveraging technology and transparency: Doconomy offers a credit card that enables the cardholder to track and measure their carbon footprint, making consumers aware of the environmental costs of their purchases. This kind of transparency can drive more mindful consumption and disposal practices.

As environmental awareness increases, the way we end our relationships with products and services becomes more and more significant. Effective offboarding should be as straightforward and satisfying as onboarding, addressing customer needs and reducing frustration. Making the end of consumer journey equally engaging as its beginning not only supports mindful consumption but also fosters a sustainable and pleasant consumer journey, which directly increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.


Become an endineer yourself

Any expertise isn't built by reading one article. If you are hungry for more insights about endineering, definitely start with Joe Macleod's books Engineering or Ends for an in-depth and comprehensive outlook on this issue.

If you feel you'd appreciate assistance with ending an existing customer journey, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We will gladly share our knowledge and look for a solution to your problem as certified endineers.

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Minimum Viable Podcast #27: Creating better cities

Offboarding: How to end your customer’s journey meaningfully

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Your journey
starts here

Get inspired!

All

Podcasts

Events

Newsletters

Can AI-powered synthetic users replace research with real humans?

Want to improve your customers' experience? Start with employee experience first

How does Net Promoter Score impact revenue growth?

Three case studies on omnichannel consistency

In the sea of product ideas, how to recognize the most beneficial ones?

Minimum Viable Podcast #29: CX in pharmacy

Minimum Viable Podcast #28: Business design

The new reality shapes how consumers perceive brands. How to stay relevant?

Minimum Viable Podcast #27: Creating better cities

Offboarding: How to end your customer’s journey meaningfully

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

Your journey starts here

Your journey
starts here