Overview.

SK-II, a luxury skincare brand, prioritizes delivering exceptional customer experiences. However, their sales team's counseling app in department stores was outdated and no longer provided the luxurious experience expected from the brand.

SK-II approached us to develop a solution that aligns better with their prestigious brand image. As the project's UX Lead, my responsibility was to enhance SK-II's luxury skin counseling service. During the discovery phase, which involved secret shopping and interviews, we found that the beauty counselors had to go through time-consuming manual processes every day.

These processes were time consuming but necessary, surprisingly SK-II's global HQ was unaware of them. To address this, we developed a hybrid solution in the form of a single app that could instantly switch between customer service and administration mode.

The project was a great success, with the client reporting that each beauty counselor now saving up to 40 minutes a day on administrative work.

Overall, the project delivered a new, more efficient, and luxurious experience for SK-II's customers while making the beauty counselors' work easier.

Discovery.

At the outset of the project, no one on the UX team were knowledgeable about skincare. The male members barely used water to wash their faces, and the females followed a rudimentary skincare regimen.
‍
We were tasked with developing an Asian skincare-focused experience for SK-II, which was a whole new domain for us. Unlike basic skincare routines that involved only a few steps, such as facial wash, cleanser, and moisturiser, Asian skincare rituals could have over 10 steps and involved products like "Essence," "Toner," "Ampoules," and "Serums."
‍
To understand this world better, we embarked on a Discovery journey to explore more about skincare and what it meant to people who used it. We also wanted to learn about SK-II's role in their skincare routines and the responsibilities of beauty counsellors.

The primary goal of the discovery process was to establish empathy with the end-users and identify their needs, wants, and challenges.
‍
To conduct the research, we organised several activities. First, we did some Secret Shopping where we approached SK-II counters as prospective customers, seeking advice on the product and the full counselling experience. We did this without the knowledge of the Beauty Counsellors to gain an authentic customer experience.
‍
Next, we conducted Observation by arranging visits to the department stores with the client and observing the counters from a distance. This enabled us to observe the beauty counsellors' actions when there were no customers around, when there were a few at the counter, and how their behaviour changed during peak hours.

Finally, we conducted 1-on-1 Interviews with high-performing and low-performing beauty counsellors based on the information we gathered from the previous two steps.
‍
We conducted the research across three core markets for SK-II: Japan, Singapore, and China.
‍
During the Discovery process, we gained valuable insights, and some of the most important discoveries were unrelated to the original task. For example, we discovered that beauty counsellors had daily operational tasks that had to be done manually either at the start or end of their shift. They kept track of stock and appointments on paper, which was inconvenient and could get lost easily.

Challenges.

Initially, the project's scope was limited to redesigning the Skin Counselling experience. However, during the discovery process, we found that Beauty Counsellors had many administrative tasks that were all done on paper, like Stock counting. They would do this every hour.

This meant that we had to convince stakeholders of the importance of this task and find a solution that could improve their efficiency and productivity, while also enhancing the end customer experience.I believed that creating a happier and more engaged staff would result in a better experience for customers. To persuade the decision-makers, we collected evidence of the excessive amount of paper cluttering each counter and the time wasted in these manual processes.

However, the real challenge was to demonstrate how the digitization process would work through an app that integrated both customer service and administrative tasks.To tackle this, I utilized multiple prototypes created through Axure, which featured different navigation schemas.

These prototypes demonstrated how the Beauty Counsellors could efficiently switch between different modes while serving customers and performing their daily administrative tasks. Eventually, we developed a multi-modal app that could adapt to different modes of operation. For instance, when in Admin mode, the UI was dense to enhance their efficiency, while a quick access button allowed them to switch to customer service mode when approached by a customer.

Testing.

From the knowledge we gained from the Ethnographic research, we developed protoypes for testing key user journeys.

Testing was conducted in Osaka, Guangzhou, and Singapore. Working with the client we recruited Beauty Counsellors, both high performing and low performing. This would allow a wider breadth of behavioural data.

It was clear that the detailed discovery process helped, for our first round of testing, participants quickly grapsed the overall flow of the App. Where we fell a little flat was more detailed nuances. The Counselling flow we designed, was too strict on the step by step process, but the reality was that during the counselling process, quickly jumping back and forth was extremely important.

The testing was well recieved by both the client and the Beauty Counsellors. With multiple rounds of testing, they could see the improvements based on their feedback. This created a deeper sense of satisfaction from the participants, as they felt more involved in the process.

This sense of satisfaction turned participants into advocates for the new system, which help immensely with change management.

Outcome.

The original ask from SK-II was to redesign their in-store counseling experience. However, during our ethnographic research we also observed that in all markets, the Beauty Counselors were doing many manual administrative tasks.Tasks like sales tracking and inventory counting was all done manually on paper sheets.

In order for Beauty Counselors to spend more time with customers, we digitised many of their manual tasks.Post launch in Japan, the SDC app saved each Beauty Counselor up to 40 minutes from their daily administrative tasks.

The redesigned skin counseling experience for customers was also much more immersive and they were more proud to show off the screens to their customers.

SK-II Skin Destiny Concierge.

A dual function app designed for SK-II Japan, Singapore, and China.

Overview.

Discovery.

Challenges.

Testing.

Outcome.