A full case study (available by request) was produced collaboratively by Informed XP and stakeholders at the National Science Foundation (NSF), to showcase the customer experience research, innovation, and results achieved by the Customer Experience (CX) team I led from 2021-25.
Here are some highlights in a quick 2.5 minute video. If you’d rather read, the story is below.
Innovating in the parking garage was one of my favorite projects during our time at NSF. Working on transportation issues has always fascinated me (parking and transportation was something I had previously explored in my work, notably with Stanford University), and improving an operational necessity like parking at the building provided a great opportunity to improve everyday working conditions for people at NSF.
Additionally, just exploring the parking garage and finding out what made it work was fascinating, because what’s underneath — in this case, under the building! — is always more complex than expected, and provides opportunities for improvement that may seem obvious in hindsight but take real world customer insight to uncover.
In the case of the NSF parking garage, we found a business process that had worked before the 2020 covid pandemic, but had been adapted to a post-pandemic world in a way that caused constant headaches and hardships for customers. By performing onsite “service safaris”, stakeholder and customer interviews, and performing an agency-wide customer survey, we were able to pinpoint a key issue to address immediately, as well as build a backlog of further improvements.
A deep dive into the end-to-end process of using the parking garage and the background technology, machinery, and business process that makes it possible uncovered a way to easily streamline the process for customers.
We reduced the target complaints by 100% — completely! — by eliminating the step in the process that was such a headache. In the new landscape, that step had benefited a slim minority of customers who were able to be accommodated individually, and the burden it created for everyone else was easily removed.
At the same time, our team put in place an ongoing “Voice of the Customer” (VoC) program by providing feedback mechanisms at key points in the process, via email and QR codes. This enabled the facilities team members to better monitor customer issues in the parking garage, helped them receive positive & helpful as well as negative feedback, and gave them a way to measure the success of CX improvements.
At a workplace, parking should be a benefit, not a burden. Listening to customers, understanding processes, and getting our hands dirty enabled us to transform the everyday parking experience from struggle to satisfaction.
