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Recycle Smart 

MY ROLE

Research, Interviews, Analysis, Persona, Customer Journey, and Prototyping

PROJECT GOAL

To help Recycle Smart to assess and improve their end-to-end service (both digital and physical) of their recently launched recyclables pickup service.

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HOW CAN WE IMPROVE THE RECYCLING SERVICE?

Recycle Smart offers 2 main services - Recycling education and recyclables pickup. The pickup service enables users to book a pickup appointment of recyclables from their home through Recycle Smart website or app. This service has been launched in suburbs within Randwick council for less than 2 months when the client approached us. They are eager to validate their service direction and assess their service flow from digital platform to physical experience.

CHALLENGES

The client did not undertake any research before launching the service nor seek feedback from the existing customers.

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There was hardly any ground that we could build on and there was a lot needed to be done in a very limited time frame.

SOLUTIONS

Tasks were defined and assigned with specific check points. They were strictly followed throughout the project.

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Initial emphasis was put on research and interviews to fill the missing piece. From the research, we helped to identify the primary target customers, and we discovered that the layout and content of their website caused major confusion to users so an update has been delivered based on the comments from the usability test.

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DESIGN PROCESS

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OUR PRIORITIES

After initial meeting with clients, a scope of work has been prioritised based on the importance and the emergency to the business.

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What is happening in Randwick Council?

To better understand the current recycling trend of the residents in the partnering councils, we have discovered two crucial findings from the report issued by Randwick council: more apartments than houses, and a high contamination rate of red and yellow bins.

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Pick up service at $2 is an unique offering

I have studied 3 other major recycling service providers in the market - PLANET ARK, REDCYCLE and TERRACYCLE to identify how Recycle Smart can gain an edge over its competitors. 

Among the 4 of them, Recycle Smart is the only one that offers pick up service. Of the broad market, its pricing of $2 per bag is the cheapest. Even so, customers are not used to the idea of paying for small recyclables collection. We have identified this as a potential obstacle to engage 1st time customers.

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What is the recycling pattern of potential users?

We have interviewed 14 potential customers, each with 13 questions to understand their preferences and difficulties on recycling, especially items that do not belong to yellow bin. 

What and where do you recycle?

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What difficulties do you face?

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Where did you learn how to recycle?

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What do the current users think about Recycle Smart?

We have further interviewed 5 current customers of Recycle Smart to better understand their on-boarding experience, and their pains and gains in using the service. Here is what we found:

POINT OF CONTACT

4 out of 5 of the interviewees first engaged with Recycle Smart at the Randwick Eco Fair, only 1 of them through Facebook

PAIN POINTS 

Bag collection for apartment customers has been tricky without sufficient communication with strata management

100% SATISFATORY

All of the interviewees are satisfied with the physical pick up experience

USER PATTERN

From the interview findings, the users' response to recycling are spread along the spectrum of KNOW and DON'T KNOW, CARE and DON'T CARE. Except for a few outliers, the majority sits around KNOW SOME and CARE SOME.

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4 Personas are developed incorporating the needs and behavioral patterns of the users who distribute among the 4 spectrum of the scale. 2 personas are identified as Primary and Secondary  since they are most like to be converted among the 4.

PRIMARY PERSONA

DON'T

KNOW

+

CARE

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SECONDARY PERSONA

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KNOW

+

DON'T CARE

KNOW

+

CARE

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DON'T

KNOW

+

CARE

Customer Journey Mapping have been developed for the Primary and Secondary persona to understand their pain points how Recycle Smart can improve their experience.

PRIMARY PERSONA

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SECONDARY PERSONA

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What gap does Recycle Smart fill?

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Implement the findings

Since the service of Recycle Smart is heavily rely on their online presence, a usability test has been conducted to evaluate how usable their website and app is and how easy our users to reach their goal. 

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A website prototype then has been developed by implementing the comments from users and the business goals. We focus on website base on the feedback from the clients, when facing the increased number of refusals of downloading the app. 

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CURRENT WEBSITE ANALYSIS

FINDINGS

  1. Repetitive Content - Same content appears multiple times on the same page confuses the users

  2. Unclear Instruction - The explanation on the booking process is not well explained

  3. Confusion on "The Bag" - Their service charge is calculated per "bag", but there is not enough information about it provided on the website

  4. Distracting Information - Different messages were put on the same page which distracts users from focusing on the most important message

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PROTOTYPE

Base on user comments, we focus on improving 3 pages PickUp, EDUCATION and CHECKOUT  which we found them crucial to the whole service. After 3 usability test, a final prototype has been created.

How PickUp works

  1. Front load important messages - Describe the service with details from the beginning

  2. Easy 4 steps - a step by step guidance to explain how the whole pick up service works

  3. Clear explanation of "The bag" - Give clear dimension and examples of what the bag refers to

  4. No more repetitive info -  clear up redundant content on one page

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Learn what to recycle

  1. Clear info - a clear instruction can prevent contamination of recyclables and save the time on communication

  2. Further education - instructions on what NOT to put in each bin

  3. Clear up repetitive info - Focus on educational content only 

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Checkout process

  1. Fit each step into 1 page - avoid scrolling to prevent any missing info

  2. Special request - field of special request is created to enable the customers to leave personal requests or to ask questions 

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How do we measure success?

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  • Increase the number of users

  • Generate more interest

  • Increase the conversion rate from sign up to engagement

  • Attract return customers

  • Less incidences when PickUp

ACTION PLAN

NOW

  1. Implement website prototype design if applicable 

  2. Monitor bag giveaway and PickUp rate

  3. Send reminder and notification upon bag collection

NEXT

  1. Actively seek for customer feedback after service

  2. Provide quick survey with  notification when bag has been picked up

  3. Monitor and Test bag design

LATER

  1. Collaborate more Educational information from Council

  2. Gamification on educaion

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