Introducing
Brookline Self-Care Pass.
A rebundled innovation to amarah’s services
TIMEFRAME:
Oct - Dec 2023
TEAM MEMBERS:
Ryan Kao, Harshini Ramaswamy, Cassie (Yiwen) Xu, Sijia Fan
ROLES:
Service Designer, UX Researcher
TOOLS:
Figma, FigJam, Google Sheets
Overview: Solution
Established in 2016, Amarah is a small woman-owned local business located in the Brookline neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA that encompasses an upscaled boutique shop and fitness studio. The business focuses in providing a supportive and inclusive environment for women who seek to feel empowered and experience wellness within the community.
The business faces challenges in attracting new customers with its service offerings. My team sought to discover what is pushing Amarah’s efforts back and ways to promote the business as an added value to the Brookline community.
Our solution is the Brookline Self-Care Pass, which is a packaged experience that bundles services from Amarah and external small businesses at a value, which differs from their current memberships. We believe our service innovation will help increase the visibility of Amarah's current offerings and attract people from local communities and new customers from diverse backgrounds, which were 2 main problems we identified through our research. The pass would encompass:
Fitness class(es)
Massage session
Exclusive boutique discount
External service from partner salon or wellness business in the Brookline area
We see customers saving about 20-30% compared to their individual pricings. We envision the pass to take the form of a physical wallet-sized stamp sheet (as shown above), where customers receive stamps after each completed service. This approach can attract new customers from other businesses in the area, creating an opportunity for converting them to members of Amarah.
Research Insights
client field trip
Our first in-depth exposure to Amarah happened through our field trip to the brick and mortar location in Brookline. While exploring the store, we asked the owner of Amarah, Amanda, and her work exchange employee, Nimita, several questions to understand her business and community.
Here are the key findings we gathered from this trip:
diverse Service offerings
Fitness sessions
Boutique fashion apparel and lifestyle products
Massage sessions
Reiki sessions
Other wellness services
main revenue source
Fitness classes and memberships bring in the most revenue for Amarah
customer demographics
Despite the diversity of Brookline community, Amarah customers are 90% middle-aged white women, mostly between ages 25-30
past partnership experience
Had previous short-term partnerships with other small businesses that has resulted in more customer traffic
Limited budget
Typical for a small business, Amarah lacks ample financial resources or employees, as Amanda described she infrequently pays herself
Limited opening hours
Amarah is open for a few hours at a time during the week due to low foot traffic during the day to reduce the cost of utilities
intercept interviews
From client interviews, our team identified that increasing engagement with diverse groups in the local community would result in boosting business for Amarah. We wanted to conduct more research to explore what residents of Brookline thought about Amarah and what their experiences with Amarah have looked like.
To do so, we carried out guerilla research in Brookline and intercepted passersby on Brookline boulevard, which is where Amarah is located. We asked questions to residents and other small business owners on the street about their knowledge of Amarah and if they have used its services before. Several key findings gathered from this stage include:
Limited awareness
Most of our interviewees on the street did not know what Amarah was
Invisible service offerings
Few interviewees who have visited Amarah did not know about the fitness and wellness service offerings, believing that it is only a boutique store
Competing with Brookline beauty services
We observed several beauty service providers on Brookline Blvd, such as hair and nail salons, that cater to a diverse clientele of women in the neighborhood
making sense of service model
Based on the information we gathered from our client and observations during the trip, we created a service blueprint of Amarah’s main offerings: the boutique and fitness studio. This helped us understand how each service work, such as how the customers and business interacts.
Boutique Service Blueprint
Fitness Studio Service Blueprint
One issue we discovered in our blueprint is that the fitness studio is almost invisible to customers when they enter the store. The only way customers would know is when Amanda specifically mentions it during conversations. There is also minimal physical indication within the store to convey to customers that Amarah offers multiple services.
Compiling all our gathered insights from our trip and service blueprints, we defined several objectives we aim to pursue:
increase visibility of service offerings
Finding ways to spotlight the fitness and wellness services within the boutique will help customers understand Amarah’s range of service offerings
diversify customer demographics
Attracting diverse customers will benefit both Amarah and the local community
use of limited budget
Being able to offer an impactful solution with the given constraints is something to work with
How might we make Amarah’s services more visible to the community and attract more diverse, new customers?
Brainstorm & Ideation
conceptualizing service innovations
With the How-might-we statement to guide our brainstorming, we leveraged the abstraction laddering and “worst possible ideas” method to explore a broad range of ideas to develop for our service innovation.
After presenting our service innovation ideas during critique, we received feedback that the Brookline beauty pass idea could effectively provide a more cohesive experience with Amarah’s services and bring in new customers from the community. Based on this, we initially designed our idea to be a bundled package of fitness and wellness services provided by Amarah and a local beauty or wellness service provider. We focused on developing this idea more in the next stage for the first service innovation pitch.
understanding potential customer experiences
For our team to visualize how new customers may discover and experience the pass, we created storyboards and a customer journey map that concentrate on back-stage interactions across four distinct phases (as shown below): awareness, consideration, engagement, and loyalty.
Storyboards
Customer journey map
We also created a service blueprint that allowed us to consider the different contexts and scenarios in which customers would discover and interact with the pass.
Service blueprint
Physical Evidence
User Journey
Customer Experience
Front Stage
Making it Work
Line of Interactions
Line of Visibility
Awareness + Discovery
Exploration + Selection
Class + Wellness Experience
Amarah and Salon employees market pass to customers/followers
Partner with hair and nail salons in Brookline
Book class or massage online
Take class or massage at Amarah
Meet Amarah’s community
Finalize a pricing plan and list of benefits for the pass
Discover pass at salon, on website, or in store
Creating online and print versions of the pass
Building Our Solution: Early Iterations
brookline wellness pass
To increase awareness of Amarah and its services in Brookline, we decided to design the pass to be an all-in-one holistic experience that serves as physical evidence of Amarah’s service experience.
We discovered a few beauty salons and wellness businesses that are more centrally located within Brookline. In addition, there were other business partnerships in the area that have provided value to each respective business. We hypothesized that having an additional external service on the pass would bring in new customers from or around Brookline, creating new exposure opportunities for all of Amarah’s services.
Additionally, we added a boutique discount to ensure that customers would visit the Amarah boutique. We also proposed to offer a monthly subscription and one-time free that would fit customer’s budgets and needs. A continuous subscription would be an opportunity to convert new customers to become full-time Amarah members.
Stamp Sheet
We envision the pass to take the form of a physical wallet-sized stamp sheet, where customers receive cute stamps or stickers after each completed service. This approach enables increased attachment between the customers and Amarah and allows customers to keep track of the services needed to be completed in the pass.
As seen in our iterations below, our design of the pass is intended to be minimalistic: listing out all the services bundled in the pass, incorporating a large stamp/sticker area, and detailing out the different pricings.
WELLNESS PASS
Name: __________________________
Two fitness classes of your choice at Amarah
One 30-minute massage experience at Amarah
10% off on first few purchases at Amarah’s Boutique
Choice of either a nail or hair cut service at the partner salon
One-time pass: $100
Monthly subscription: $90
Iteration 1
WELLNESS PASS
Name: _____________________
Two fitness classes of your choice at Amarah
One 30-minute massage experience at Amarah
10% off on first few purchases at Amarah’s Boutique shop
Choice of either a nail or hair cut service at the partner salon
One-time pass: $100
Monthly subscription: $80
Iteration 2
poster
In our initial phase of exploration, we adopted the “parallel prototyping” approach and crafted seven poster ideas. This method allowed us to diversify our ideas and foster creativity. Then we each voted for our top two ideas and crafted a guideline to integrate different components. Our first draft consisted of a brief introduction to our service innovation - brookline wellness pass, benefits included, and visuals of Amarah and concepts we aimed to convey.
After the “Rose, Bud, Thorn” critique session, we synthesized the feedback and recognized several areas for improvement:
Enhance readability: Increase font size, simplify information, highlight important message.
Visual consistency: Reduce repetitive visuals and keep the style consistent.
More features: Incorporate price breakdown, customer savings etc. to provide more explanation to the value for customers.
first pitch & feedback
Our team focused on sharing our top 4 insights from client and field research, breaking down our service idea, using the blueprint to talk about backstage processes, stating the value hypothesis, and discussing the value flow.
How the Pitch Went:
We received positive feedback about the idea from Amanda similar to the last pitch.
Her questions included:
What businesses were we thinking she could partner with?
How would it work with her current memberships?
She also mentioned preferring to partner with Thrive on Health in Brookline which provides sauna and acupuncture services, as nail salons are already booked and busy.
Amanda provided feedback about her appreciation of the low upfront costs of our solution. This was a mark of success for us in terms of working with the constraints of her business to provide a solution that could generate revenue at little cost to her.
After the presentation, we decided to arrange a separate meeting with Amanda outside class time to dive deeper into her questions and insights in regards to our pass. Below includes a few of her responses:
Preferably a wellness-focused business, like Thrive on Health
If she were to partner with a nail salon, she would like to partner with Palette Nail and Lash Bars (which is on the same street)
Prefers to keep partnerships around Brookline
Disconnection between fitness instructors and boutique shop
Pass is a wonderful way to provide many services in one
10% off boutique items & 15% off fitness classes at the very most
Memberships are more successful in keeping customers so the pass is better served as bridge for new customers to become members
Her feedback provided inspiration for our final pitch in terms of addressing the concerns and barriers she anticipated for implementing the pass. We included a risks and mitigation plan within our final pitch to cover these issues.
Refining Our Solution: Final Designs
brookline self-care pass
With the critique we received from both Amanda and other teams, we decided to rename our bundled package to a ‘Self-Care Pass’ (from ‘Wellness’) because it is a more suitable name given the type of services that are bundled in the pass:
Two fitness classes
One 20-min massage OR reiki session
An external service from another business (wellness/nail)
Brand Colors
#0A4559
#347B93
#3A989E
#FFFAF1
After selecting the colors, my team decided to embrace the Poppins font and round visual elements for PlanetPal because they are more organic and easier on the eyes, enhancing the interactive experience.
stamp sheet
We also redesigned the stamp sheet to be slightly smaller to fit better in a wallet. We dramatically reduced the amount of text on the sheet by moving the service description into the stamp circles and adopted a brighter beige background color for higher contrast. Lastly, we designed a backside to the stamp sheet, which includes information about Amarah’s location, opening hours, contacts, and a QR code that redirects users to the website.
poster
In response to the insights gained and areas of improvements we recognized, we redesigned the poster. We identified our primary goal and key messages we wanted to communicate: the benefits to customers, price and savings for customers and the range of services included.
Given that our service innovation centered around a physical pass, we decided to keep the stamp sheet-like feature in our design to reflect the tangible nature of the real product. To enhance clarity and accessibility, we eliminated the chunky text blocks and used concise phrases and larger font size for better readability. In order to make the visual design consistent, we got rid of the real-world image and relied on the illustrations only. Another change we made was to include illustrations of two storefronts to represent Amarah and the partner business, illustrating a collaborative relationship and the community aspects.
movie
To generate ideas for the content of our movie, we initiate the process by outlining a typical user journey. This involves creating a user journey map that illustrates the experience of an individual residing in Brookline. The narrative begins with their lack of awareness about Amarah, progresses as they explore the Brookline Self-Care Pass, and culminates in their transformation into a devoted member of Amarah. We divided the entire experience into four key stages: Awareness, Consideration, Engagement, and Loyalty.
Subsequently, utilizing the four main stages, we crafted the storyboard. This tool serves as a visual guide, aiding us in determining the key frames to be incorporated into the movie and shaping the overall script. The movie captures a customer discovering the Brookline Self-Care Pass in a partner store. After online purchase, attending classes, and exploring holistic offerings, they accumulate stamps, fostering confidence, balanced health, and support for a local business.
In crafting the script, our aim was to maintain a consistently customer-friendly tone throughout the entire movie. We started warmly, engaging customers about their needs, introduced Amarah and its inclusive services under the Brookline Self-Care Pass, and concluded with a compelling ending, urging users to try the pass now.
To amplify the warm and customer-friendly tone, we curated the video with comforting visuals. We sourced videos from Pexels and YouTube, aligning with their free commercial-use policies. Alongside online resources, we shot clips displaying our Self-Care Pass.
During brief speed-dating sessions for feedback on our video sketches, some viewers expressed difficulty remembering the pass in its entirety. To address this concern, we incorporated small animations featuring corresponding service names throughout the video. This thoughtful addition aids the audience in better retaining information about the pass.
Presenting Our Solution
final pitch
Our team focused on iterating on the service blueprint, the pass prototype, examples of marketing, and outlining risks and mitigation strategies to the client for this pitch. We integrated an estimate of costs with the service blueprint to clearly outline the association between the supporting processes for the pass with the costs.
We received positive feedback about the idea from Amanda similar to the last pitch. Subsequently, we did not iterate on the service innovation idea after the final pitch. She also asked whether this pass could be extended to multiple wellness businesses, which we replied affirmatively to.
We wanted to target new customers with the service so we focused more on tailoring the pass to be an opportunity for sampling all of her services. With more time, we would have liked to design a version of the pass to be an add-on for her existing members.
result
A mark of success for our team was positive affirmation from the client that our solution required little upfront cost from her to implement, and that she could leverage pre-existing business partnerships for this structured cross-promotion. Her feedback shows that our solution is easy to develop and has potential for scaling by increasing the number of businesses in this partnership. The project is currently under consideration for implementation by the client.
Conclusion
reflection
This class has been such an illuminating journey, which taught me so much about establishing successful services. I've learned that service providers must fully understand their services by analyzing and collecting data about the needs of their stakeholders via a co-creation approach. It's not just about delivering a product but orchestrating an experience that addresses their desires and problems. Applying all the service concepts we learned from lectures and readings to the real world, especially with a real client running a small business, was a challenge yet an exciting experience. Moreover, the collaborative aspect of our class demonstrated immense value of teamwork. Our effective communication helped foster rich ideas and solutions that ultimately lead to an appealing service innovation.
I also want to thank every one of my team members who were so hardworking and made our group dynamics extremely healthy!
next steps
I am truly grateful to have participated in this project, which has equipped me with skills crucial for my future. Looking ahead, I plan to attend one of the top graduate HCI programs in the nation at Carnegie Mellon University, where I aim to apply both my research and design skills utilized during this project. I anticipate distinguishing myself as a competitive student within the program doing so by being able to navigate through the design process as well as effectively collaborating within teams.
thanks for reading!
Note: This project is not intended to contribute to generalizable knowledge and is not human subjects research.
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