For my Social Impact Project, our final challenge of the fellowship year, I partnered with Amanada Gettgen and RecoveryPark Farms to strategize an enhanced customer experience design model for ordering and distributing produce. RecoveryPark Farms is the for-profit entity of former Challenge Partner RecoveryPark, a nonprofit organization, dedicated to creating jobs for Detroiters with barriers to employment by ways of urban farming initiatives. RecoveryPark Farms will then employ those individuals at their urban farm and sell their harvested produce to local chefs and restaurants in the local area.
Currently, RecoveryPark already has relationships with several local chefs and restaurants in the city, including: Chartreuse, Selden Standard, Republic, Bacco, and The Root. Our goal of this new proposed design was to improve satisfaction of RecoveryPark Farms products and customer relationships by optimizing the communication/ordering process between RecoveryPark and their customers. Brand cohesion and familiarity will develop efficient, personalized and intimate relationships with customers while providing them with the most convenient ordering experience. As a result, RecoveryPark Farms hopes to become a preferred provider of produce for local restaurants in the Detroit area.
“How might we brand the RecoveryPark Farms communication process to best serve both their existing customers, as well as operate as a model to foster future growth?“
First step was to familiarize ourselves with the current system. We interviewed the back-end processing work for ordering with RecoveryPark Operations Manager, George Gardiner. Next we visited the farm and assisted with the harvesting process, while talking with RecoveryPark Farm Manager, Michelle Lutz. We learned a lot about the what it takes to have this kind of responsibility, and what kind of responsibility would be on the plate of the individual who may be managing the new experience design model that Amanda and I would propose.
Next, we interviewed a few chefs in the city that are already customers of RecoveryPark Farms. Both Andy at Selden Standard and Matt at Republic were very helpful sharing their experiences regarding their relationship with RecoveryPark and other local farms in the area for the distribution of fresh produce to their restaurants. We also took this opportunity to get feedback from these highly respected chefs about what they may want to see in an improved process to receive their twice-a-week fresh produce: things they liked, things that they envision making their job or the process easier overall, etc.
Coming back to the drawing board, Amanda and I gathered together all of our notes from our interviews and interactions with the Operations and Farm Managers, and local chefs and end-users of the RecoveryPark Farms products. From these interviews, we identified two main key pain points of the ordering process:
- RecoveryPark Farms managing unpredictable orders and demands from chefs.
- Local chefs remembering to place orders consistently while managing a busy kitchen.
We concluding that to overcome these challenges:
- RecoveryPark Farms needs a flexible ordering and communication process, and
- Chefs need real time availability of produce, reminders to place an order and order confirmations.
Amanda and I proposed that RecoveryPark Farms invests in developing an mobile application to ease the ordering process for both the chefs and management of RecoveryPark Farms. We strategized a user experience flow of what the application may look like when executing an order placement, creating a user profile, this became our ultimate deliverable.
Through a seamless online and mobile ordering platform, RecoveryPark Farms will be able to provide their customers with an efficient, streamlined, flexible, and personalized experience that can foster sustainable growth of RecoveryPark Farms and #KeepDetroitFresh.