Michaela Koklesová

Customer insights are not just data; they are a holistic understanding of customers that goes beyond demographics. The real challenge is turning this knowledge into products and services that truly matter.

Join us in the beautiful premises of Opero in Prague for an evening dedicated to CX insights that drive business. On Wednesday 20 September, experts from EY Doberman and Lighting Beetle* will reveal strategies for creating products and services that resonate with new as well as loyal customers.

Whether you're a business leader, a product lead or just a fan of systematic approach to customer experience design, you're invited to join us – ONLINE or IN PERSON – for the new edition of Lighting Talks*, a series of hybrid events organized by a CX studio Lighting Beetle* and dedicated to all things UX and CX.

The event will be held in English.

The event is fully booked.
You can join us via the live stream:




Event details

‌Topic: Lighting Talks* on Impactful Services
Date: Wednesday, 20 September 2023, 6–9 PM
Speakers: EY Doberman, Lighting Beetle* – annotations below
Language: All talks will be conducted in the English language
Venue: ONLINE or IN PERSON at Opero in Prague, Czechia
Admission: Free, registration required – register below


Two lightning talks


Michal Blažej: Potent customer insights that drive business

‌
‌Michal Blažej, Managing Director of Lighting Beetle*, shares his experience in designing services that make life easier for millions of people. The principles are all well known – the process must be co-creative, user-centric, holistic. But there is one principle, not much talked about, which makes an idea potent. Learn why not all insights are created equal, and how to get to those that have the potential to redefine the relationship between your brand and the customer.

About Lighting Beetle*
Customer Experience studio that drives your business. A team of 70 experienced professionals who love to guide clients like Škoda, European Patent Office, Slovak National Gallery or Orange on their journeys to better market positions, design processes and client centric transformation. We create digital products and design services that make the lives of millions of people easier.


‌Anton Schubert: The Shift from Product to Service

‌
‌Anton Schubert, Innovation Lead at EY Doberman, will take us on a journey from the birth of Service Design in the 90’s to the present era. He will touch on the impact of digitalization and the effects of a new generation of customers who have moved away from the concept of ownership to sharing and subscription.

As the world continues to digitalize, the opportunity to build loyal customers through a digital service ecosystem increases at an unprecedented rate. Anton will share his thoughts on how companies should build their service ecosystem, and what key things to keep in mind when doing so.

About Anton Schubert
Anton is a design industry veteran with more than 25 years experience, working globally with brands such as VW, Samsung, Prada, Lufthansa, Ford, Vodafone, Allianz, Nestle and P&G amongst many others.

Anton has built and led successful design teams in Helsinki, Stockholm and London with Futurice, Vincit and Gofore. Currently Innovation Lead at EY Doberman, the focus of Anton's work is to develop strong purpose driven brands, service innovation, design led culture change and sustainable business transformation.


Evening agenda

6:00 p.m. – Door opens for guests at Opero, Prague
6:15 p.m. – Welcome and introduction (online stream starts)
6:30 p.m. – Talk by Lighting Beetle*: Michal Blažej + Q&A
7:00 p.m. – Talk by EY Doberman: Anton Schubert + Q&A
7:40 p.m. – Drinks, finger food & networking for guests in the venue (online stream ends)
9:00 p.m. – Event ends, Opero closes for the night


About the series

Lighting Talks* are a series of hybrid meetups organized by a CX studio Lighting Beetle*. The events cover topics from UX design, data analytics, engineering, customer experience, product management and more. The events are a fit for anyone who understands the value of a quality customer experience that drives businesses and is on a lookout for inspirations.

From agencies to corporates, from freelancers to managers – each time you can gather insights in two lightning talks and/or a panel tailored to a specific topic related to customer experience or digital product design. In person at our office in Bratislava, Slovakia, or from anywhere in an online stream. Records will be available shortly after each event on our Youtube channel.

Lighting Talks* on Impactful Services

Viktor Šmidák

Minimum Viable Podcast #19: Customer Experience Maturity

Inquisitive mind? Subscribe for LB* Insight – stories that make you think.


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In the latest episode of our Minimum Viable Podcast we talked with Eva Šípková from Alza, one of the largest online retailers in Central Europe. Eva is the Head of Customer Experience and if you speak Slovak or Czech language, we highly recommend listening to the interview or reading the transcript on our website. If not, here’s the most important thought!

One of the topics we talked about was finding the common ground between CX and stakeholders / managers in each department. Eva’s approach is simple: "There are some things that helped me. First is the realization that it isn’t our website, logistics nor our developers that bring in cash. It is the customers."


Find common ground

Once everyone acknowledges and aligns with this crucial fact, the next step becomes much easier to navigate. Eva suggests allowing stakeholders and departments to identify a metric connected to customer satisfaction that holds relevance for them. By doing so, they take ownership of that metric and become responsible for achieving it while you gain a clear objective that can be measured and tracked.

Wondering what that looks like in real life? "Let’s say we have a finance department. They argue they shouldn’t be involved in the CX initiative since they have limited direct customer contact.

We thought hard about this and came up with a Money delay index metric. It represents the time it takes for money to reach the customer. Let’s say you’re returning something to an Alza box (note: self-service boxes for picking up / returning orders). The moment you close the box, you should have the money in your bank account.

But here comes the finance department and claims it’s not possible. They have to check the product is undamaged, the packaging is complete, which bank the customer used…"


Put yourself in their shoes

The best way to fight this resistance is through finding an overlap between their challenges and challenges of their customers. If you can prove that changing the process can fix the problem of both sides, they will see the value.

In this case, Eva reminded them it’s also in their interest to transfer the money to the customer faster. "In fact, our finance specialists don’t want pending payments. It creates problems for them too. In the end we made fantastic progress reducing the time it takes to receive the money to hours."

This is a great example of two seemingly unrelated things coming together for the greater good. By allowing stakeholders to select their own relevant metrics, you create a sense of ownership and enable them to contribute to the overall CX objectives.


Stars (and stakeholders) need to allign

Whether your company already started or is just embarking on its own CX journey, remember to seek out ambassadors, involve stakeholders in metric selection and foster a shared understanding of the value of customer experience design.

From our experience, it is a great practice to align all stakeholders on the design problem even before we jump to research and development. It allows us to come up with solutions that are better and more easily accepted across any organization. Check our Idea validation canvas and try it yourself at your next alignment with a resistant stakeholder.


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Resistant stakeholders? Use metrics they already rely on

Samuel Švec

Minimum Viable Podcast #18: CX in Complex Environment

Alžbeta Ivanovičová

Inquisitive mind? Subscribe to our LB* Insights newsletter. No fluff, just stories to make you think.

The basis of creating good products and services is a creative process called Product Discovery, also known as product exploration or discovery. The goal of the Discovery process is to deliver a working product or part of it to users as soon as possible, with the most tangible evidence that the product team will achieve the originally intended goal, and with the knowledge that the solution is technically feasible.

To make this happen, the product team seeks answers to the following questions:

 1. Will users want to use it?
 2. Will it bring business results to the company?
 3. Is it technically feasible?
 4. Will the interested parties support this solution?


How to start with exploration

In order to even start with Product Discovery, you need to have a lot of ideas at hand. Don’t be afraid of them, ideas are friends. Friends that need to be collected and categorized.

Ideas can come out of user interviews or research, your customer service or sales department. The insights of colleagues from the "first line" (branch employees) or other teams are also fantastic resources. Last but not least, you can also do data analysis and find patterns.

You can also find tips on where to look for opportunities in this article on exploration.

FOR DOWNLOAD: Product Discovery Guide


Prioritizing ideas

No matter where you get your ideas (opportunities, problems) from, it's good practice to store them in the Discovery backlog. You then have to choose the ones with the greatest potential. I recommend that you standardize the format by answering the following questions:

 * [What] What do we want to solve? What key problem or opportunity does the proposed idea address?
 * [Who] Who does it concern? Who is the target group in this case?
 * [Why] How will we know that we have solved the problem? What exactly do we expect and how could we measure it?

The selection of ideas or their prioritization can be done with the help of one of the prioritization techniques such as PIE, RICE, MoSCoW, etc. If more stakeholders are involved in decision making, the Bull’s Eye Diagram works well.

The prioritized ideas are then validated by the product team. They find out if these ideas make sense in terms of feasibility, demand and business performance, so you can decide which ideas make sense to invest in.

In Lighting Beetle*, we use the so-called Idea validation, but you may also be familiar with Business Problem Statement or Opportunity Canvas.


10 principles of Product Discovery

Before you start with the actual discovery, remember these 10 principles of the Product Discovery phase. I compiled them based on observation and research of successful and less successful exploration teams. They are inspired by the principles of exploration from SVPG from Marty Cagan's diary entries.

1. Customers don't tell us what they want. (As my colleague Michal Blažej says, you don't want the customer to design for you.)

2. The most important thing is to create value for the customer.

3. The goal is to validate ideas as soon as possible and as cheaply as possible.

4. We need to test ideas with real customers.

5. Development is hard, but UX is usually harder and even more crucial.

6. Functionality, design and technology are closely interconnected.

7. Technical feasibility must be verified during the Discovery phase.

8. Prototypes are a great tool in exploration.

9. During the Discovery phase, it is essential to involve all important stakeholders.

10. Most of our ideas won't work, and those that do need to be iterated.

These 10 principles should be the mantra of the product team in a Discovery phase, where a product manager, a UX researcher, an interaction designer and a data analyst should primarily be involved.

This team is tasked with constantly researching user behavior and trying to change it to generate results. For example, if Spotify users spend more time listening to music, their Spotify Premium retention will increase. The team's main goal is to eliminate the risk that the Product Delivery phase will be proposed a solution which will not work or perform as expected later on.

Do you want to find out if you need a product team and who should be in it? Read my previous article about building product teams and their impact on a company's customer experience level.

Looking for concrete steps to launch your product? Read our Product Discovery Guide first. It will walk you through a 7-step process that maximizes your chances for success.


Did you find this interesting? It's from our LB* Insights newsletter. Give it a try.

10 Commandments of Product Discovery

Minimum Viable Podcast #17: Exploration


Creating seamless and engaging experiences is just as important in commercial business as it is in cultural institutions. But how can museums and galleries stay relevant or even exciting in the era of quickly bored visitors?

Join us for an evening at the newly reconstructed national gallery dedicated to the customer experience in culture, featuring experts from the Slovak National Gallery, MUSEUM BOOSTER and Lighting Beetle*. On Wednesday, 29 March 2023, our speakers will share insights and strategies for attracting all kinds of visitors – be it seasoned art goers or brand new visitors.

Whether you work in the cultural sector or are simply interested in the intersection of culture and technology, come and join us – ONLINE or IN PERSON – for the new edition of Lighting Talks*, a series of hybrid meetups organized by our CX studio Lighting Beetle* devoted to all things UX and CX.

The event will be conducted in the English language.

The seats are sold out. You can join us online, the live stream starts at 6 p.m.


Event details

Topic: Lighting Talks* on CX in culture
Date: Wednesday, 29 March 2023, 6 p.m.
Speakers: Slovak National Gallery, MUSEUM BOOSTER, Lighting Beetle* – annotations follow the registration form
Language: All talks will be conducted in the English language
Venue: ONLINE or IN PERSON at the Slovak National Gallery theatre in Bratislava, Slovakia, entrance from the Riečna street
Admission: Free, registration required – please, register below







Registration to this event was closed.










Three lightning talks:


The new SNG: Layers of Digital Experience


Michal Čudrnák, Head of Digital Collections and Services together with Katarína Vass, UX Researcher at Slovak National Gallery will guide you through their way of shaping the visitor's experience: before, during, and post-visit mixing digital, sound-based and haptic layers. All with the importance of inclusivity and accessibility in their minds.

About Slovak National Gallery
Considered one of the most important cultural institutions in Slovakia, Slovak National Gallery has been recognized for its innovative approach to presenting art. The gallery is known for raising cultural standards and embracing new technologies in its exhibitions, using a myriad of digital tools, smart chatbots, or augmented reality, to create immersive new experiences for visitors.


The Future of Museums


You can also hear Sofia Widmann, Founder & CEO of MUSEUM BOOSTER, sharing techniques and insights that help museums and galleries all over the world implement new digital strategies and boost the visitor experience plus their loyalty.

About MUSEUM BOOSTER
Research & consultancy group MUSEUM BOOSTER from Vienna, Austria helps museums and galleries with digital transformation, innovation, and museum boosting. Their long list of clients includes Centre Pompidou in Paris, MUMOK and MAK in Vienna, or Guggenheim in Bilbao to name a few.


A gallery or a website? A space you want to lose yourself in


Pavol Pružinec, Creative Director, and David Chmela, Art Director at Lighting Beetle* will let you peek inside the newly redesigned the website of Slovak National Gallery with an unusual concept: it encourages you to lose yourself in the content. Why is that a good thing? Come and hear it for yourself.

About Lighting Beetle*
Customer Experience studio that drives your business. A team of experienced professionals who love to guide clients on their journeys to better market positions, design processes, brand strategies, or tech stacks. We create digital products and design services that make the lives of millions of people easier.


Evening agenda

5:30 p.m. – Door opens for guests in the Slovak National Gallery
6:00 p.m. – Welcome and introduction (online stream starts)
6:10 p.m. – Talk by SNG: Michal Čudrnák & Katarína Vass + Q&A
6:45 p.m. – Talk by Lighting Beetle*: Pavol Pružinec & Dávid Chmela + Q&A
7:10 p.m. – Talk by Museum Booster: Sofia Widmann + Q&A
7:40 p.m. – Drinks, finger food & networking for guests in the venue (online stream ends)
9:00 p.m. – Event ends, Slovak National Gallery closes for the night


About the series

Lighting Talks* are a series of hybrid meetups organized by a CX studio Lighting Beetle*. The events cover topic from UX design, data analytics, engineering, customer experience, product management and more. The events are a fit for anyone who understands the value of a quality customer experience that drives businesses and is on a lookout for inspirations.

From agencies to corporates, from freelancers to managers – each time you can gather insights in two lightning talks and/or a panel tailored to a specific topic related to customer experience or digital product design. In person at our office in Bratislava, Slovakia, or from anywhere in an online stream. Records will be available shortly after each event on our Youtube channel.

Lighting Talks* on CX in culture

Minimum Viable Podcast #16: Customer Experience in Culture

Dominika Babulicová

What is the purpose of this canvas?

The right questions don't usually pop up just like that. Especially during user research, every UX designer and researcher needs to have a process how to come up with smart questions.

Asking good questions is not just a skill for research purposes only. It is also important when we talk to stakeholders, clients and we enquire about their needs or work with them on workshops.

The ability to ask a question appears to be a uniquely human trait, one that:

 * saves us time and energy as we gather resources and information
 * allows us to develop empathy for others
 * creates bonds of trust, even among strangers.

Moreover, people who ask more questions are seen as more likable. And who wouldn't want that!


In this cheatsheet

You'll learn how to:

 * come up with good questions
 * execute the interview the right way
 * avoid mistakes and biasing the interview

Instructions for all steps can be found directly in the cheatsheet.







Get the User Interview Cheatsheet


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Which one best describes you?*




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Product team member (I build or market products & services)


Product owner (I manage a product or startup lifecycle)


Corporate leader (I manage a division in a bigger company)


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User Interview Cheatsheet


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User Interview Cheatsheet

Inquisitive mind? Subscribe to our LB* Insights newsletter. No fluff, just stories to make you think.

The faster you experiment, the faster you learn, the faster you’re likely to succeed. That means abandoning the popular waterfall approach. Why?

Imagine a manager at a fictional company. He approves a strict budget for a new product, the design team then creates the experience, later the developers take over and release a perfectly usable product. Everyone is happy and success is achieved.

Sounds like a dream? It is. Reality is, in most cases, poles apart. This is because with waterfall approach, you’re not reducing the uncertainty whatsoever. But there is a way.

Fit between what a company offers and what a customer wants is the number one requirement of a successful value proposition. - Strategyzer

More and more companies nowadays are starting to work with an agile approach. And even though the word "agile" has become a buzzword over the years, this approach has many advantages. Let’s illustrate this methodology in the same made up story.

In this case, the manager starts with exploring a challenge, whether it is a usability issue or a business performance.

If the research team does find the problem worth solving (sometimes there might not even be a problem to begin with), the creation phase begins. And once hypotheses are validated, the budget can be progressively increased.

Designers start concepting, developers start coding and copywriters start writing. They do this in sprints and share their progress (and issues) throughout the whole project. This way, designers don’t design something that can’t be coded and vice versa. Releasing happens more often and so does validating.


When to validate?



Before spending weeks or months building a first version of your product or feature, validate the core (or riskiest) ideas with a few experiments. We dive deeper into the importance of validation and the whole process in our Validation Handbook.

Here are 4 main stages in which you should validate. It is a good practice to identify which stage you’re in so that you can pick adequate experiments to validate with. The stages are:

1. Problem validation

Here you test whether the problem you came up with is worth solving. Is there a room for your idea or is the market quite saturated already? In this stage, you can use desk research or picnic on the graveyard method.

2. Solution validation

Here you will validate your solution to the problem. Is your solution ideal? Can it make money? You can leverage experiments like solution interviews or comprehension tests.

3. Building the minimum solution

A focus on releasing a minimum solution means that you can potentially avoid lengthy and possibly unnecessary work. In this stage, techniques such as fake door or A/B testing are helpful.

4. Continous build & measure

Your product is never finished. Constant iteration is necessary to make sure you stay competitive. Usability testing and product-market fit survey are just some of the methods you can use.

You can find a list of 30 experimenting methods like these in our Experiment Toolbox guide.


Holy grail of validation



Companies that are at the forefront of agile development use a dual-track agile approach.

Dual-track agile allows both discovery and delivery to happen simultaneously. This approach doesn’t require the Discovery team to fully define all features before the Delivery team starts building. The entire process is collaborative and involves teams’ key members (designer, developer, product owner).


Getting out



Building a product that customers want requires you to switch from planning to experimenting. Anybody involved in developing your product needs to get out of the building to directly experiment with your customers. Only once you have proven your riskiest assumption true, you should start working on delivery.

Transformation from waterfall to agile approach is a big challenge that can take years. Therefore don’t be discouraged and persist. In the end, your company will become more efficient time and money-wise and you will get a deeper understanding of your customer.


Did you find this interesting? It's from our LB* Insights newsletter. Give it a try.

Get inspired!

All Stories

Podcasts

Events

Tools

Newsletter

Lighting Talks* on Impactful Services

Minimum Viable Podcast #19: Customer Experience Maturity

Resistant stakeholders? Use metrics they already rely on

Minimum Viable Podcast #18: CX in Complex Environment

10 Commandments of Product Discovery

Minimum Viable Podcast #17: Exploration

Lighting Talks* on CX in culture

Minimum Viable Podcast #16: Customer Experience in Culture

User Interview Cheatsheet

Shift from building to experimenting

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‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

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Don’t miss out

Your journey
starts here

Get inspired!

All Stories

Podcasts

Events

Tools

Newsletter

Lighting Talks* on Impactful Services

Minimum Viable Podcast #19: Customer Experience Maturity

Resistant stakeholders? Use metrics they already rely on

Minimum Viable Podcast #18: CX in Complex Environment

10 Commandments of Product Discovery

Minimum Viable Podcast #17: Exploration

Lighting Talks* on CX in culture

Minimum Viable Podcast #16: Customer Experience in Culture

User Interview Cheatsheet

Shift from building to experimenting

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

‌‌

Don’t miss out

Your journey starts here

Your journey
starts here