How might we find and deliver what matters most to our luxury vehicle customers?
Description:
Over 10 months we uncovered what matters most to our luxury customers and how we can bring those to fruition through experiences they can enjoy throughout the life of the vehicle and it’s ecosystem.
Outcome:
North Star for holistic product experiences on future luxury vehicle, informing strategic choices, and new R&A roadmaps over the next 10 years.
Process
Research - Know People
Through basic through in our customer's lives, we dived into. their. typical behaviors, rituals, symbolic motivations and needs of current and potential luxury owners.
Our goal was to understand who they are as a person:
How they spend time
How they see themselves
Their priorities, goals
From a vehicle POV we sought to understand the role of their vehicle, past and future purchase decisions, how they currently think and use their car, and what type of partner the vehicle is to them.
We took this information then cross-synthesized it with prior futuring research and business strategy to land on 4 areas that matter most to our customer
Bringing them to life
Through workshops with skill teams and subject matter expert meetings, we broke the insights into different directions that they could take. The concepts below were created with the intent that they hit on multiple areas that matter to the customer. The question was, how do they truly manifest?
Opps 2 Research
Myself and a VR prototyper worked together to bring experiences to over 20 customers where we tested a multitude of ideas. Below are a few examples.
Picking Up Where you Left Off
When Daryll is getting ready to go to work, he always tries to catch up on what has been happening in the world around him. News, household bills, work emails -- but when he entered his car the routine would pause or stop completely. Now he has the freedom to continue his routine with no wasted idle time. Instead of postponing reading emails or business news articles, he can now have his vehicle read them aloud and assist him in starting a reply. Now, he is always in touch with what is happening in the world and can work efficiently and safely.
Elevating the Mundane
After a long day in the office, it is always a welcome sight for Jessica to see her vehicle recognize her approach. Waking up to greet her from a distance, a soft array of lights illuminate the path to her door. The subtle, intimate branding that appears on the door as Jessica draws ever closer and the simple brush of her hand that causes the door to open delight her every time, especially at times when her hands are full. These subtle cues paired with a functional and elevated entrance, remind Jessica of all she's accomplished, giving her a moment to rejoice.
Tailored For Me
When Anita first went to the dealer to get her vehicle she was introduced to several key features that make this unique to her. One of them being the seat -- in the studio lab of the dealership, there was a car seat on a platform where she sat and the seat came to life. Her dealer friend, Susan, was there to walk her through what was happening and Anita was impressed -- the seat tailored itself to her size while taking health into consideration for posture. When she sat in her vehicle for the first time it again customized itself to her body.
Adaptive Cabin Experience
As Drea moves through her day, she constantly has to keep pace with needs from her work and self. In the past she would worry about notifications going off as she drove, or multitasking when she knew she shouldn't be. Now Drea's vehicle helps control all the environmental noise, helping her focus on any given task.
Safety From Afar
The vehicle was an investment that Tom put his money toward. He always used to have a lingering concern in his mind about the safety of his vehicle no matter where it was. Now that he knows that his vehicle is always looking out, that's one less worry that he has to carry with him. The moment when the vehicle comes to the rescue is powerful, helping him manage the unforeseen.
Design Frameworks, Principles and Development Roadmaps
After our customer research event, we translated our learnings into frameworks that help engineering and marketing teams that we were working with to make choices of what should be prioritized in the future. Along with Design principles that guide transportation designers in how the vehicle should feel, look and be interacted with.
Learn more about this in conversation.