Aligning team ways of working and strategic customer targets

UI / UX Design / Strategic Customer Targeting / Brand Priority Alignment

Product Designer

Overview

Kroger has different customer segments characterized by customer behaviors. Some customers prioritize low prices while others feel the quality of food is most important.

The business and brand of Kroger as a whole prioritize certain outcomes that align with some segments more than others. These change from time to time based on research.

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The Ask

Ensure the team is functioning as efficiently as possible and our products are driving business priorities.

The Question

What customers should we be designing for? Do our target audiences align with brand goals?

The Goal

“Recalibrate the team” by coming together to align on working processes, product outcomes, how we work with other teams, and gaining visibility.

My Role

This project was unique because it was very collaborative. To achieve our goal of making sure that everyone was on the same page when it came to our customers and team products, the design team had to work together. Therefore, my specific role in this project was to contribute as part of the team during learning, discovery, and working sessions where we created our long scroll presentation.

 

Customer Target Learning

Who are we designing for? How do we put those customers first?

Our team realized that we weren’t sure who specifically the target users were that we were designing our products for. It’s obvious that the products needed to be usable and efficient, but how do we cater to customers on a more specific and personal level?


To start tackling these big questions the team paired with a strategic target expert. The team participated in three hour-long sessions to learn about each one of Kroger’s three strategic customer targets.

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Product Vision Alignment

How do the in-store products align with Kroger’s full, fresh, and friendly promise?

For each of the three categories we identified how the product met that promise and ideas for the future of the product. Vision statements and customer journies were especially helpful in keeping things high level and focused on the cusomer.

 

 Sharing Our Work

A uniquely captivating presentation for team visibility

The In-Store team was able to showcase their successes across all four of their products and align on team goals, processes, products, and opportunities to address next

 

Team

Joelle Halle, Product Designer / Manager

Ross Adams, Product Designer

Rick Neltner, Senior Product Design Manager

Kate Geiger, Strategic Target Session Presenter

What I Learned

Advocating for your team

I learned how to gain visibility for your team’s successes in a large company. We shared our working process and products that our team works on with other teams.

How to create a captivating presentation that people will pay attention to

It’s easy to start tuning out presentations and slide decks after a while. We wanted to make sure that people listened to what we had to say. This deck grabbed their attention.

Collaborating in working sessions with other product designers

Sketch Cloud is a collaborative tool that allows designers to edit the same document in real time. Working sessions were extremely helpful for us to inspire, give feedback, and resolve issues all in the span of an hour.

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