Improving the Customer Experience at the Olympia Terminal of the Port of Helsinki Piia Hanhirova 2020 Laurea Laurea University of Applied Sciences Improving the Customer Experience at the Olympia Terminal of the Port of Helsinki Piia Hanhirova Degree Programme in Service Innovation and Design Master’s Thesis February, 2020 Laurea University of Applied Sciences Abstract Degree Programme in Service Innovation and Design MBA Piia Hanhirova Improving the Customer Experience at the Olympia Terminal of the Port of Helsinki Year 2020 Number of pages 92 Traditionally, the passenger terminals are considered merely as pass through venues. Port of Helsinki wants to change that conception and develop the port and its passenger terminals’ overall service offering, as well as to contribute positively to locals’ daily lives. The purpose of this research-oriented service design project was to improve the customer ex- perience at Olympia Terminal of the Port of Helsinki. The research objectives were set out to be two-fold. First, the current customer experience of the foot passengers at the Olympia Terminal was investigated by mapping the pains and gains in the current-state customer ex- perience as well as by ideating a future-state ideal customer journey with the help of service design methods, e.g. co-creation workshop. Second, the state of customer centricity at Port of Helsinki was examined with the help of a research by Hemel & Rademakers (2016). Theoretical framework for this thesis draws from the service marketing research, service- and customer-dominant logics, value creation and customer centric approach. Methodological ap- proach is qualitative benefiting from the field of design thinking and service design. Research data was gathered through desk research, thematic interviews, observations, autoethnogra- phy and co-creation workshop. Interview data was analyzed through content analysis. Service design tools used included persona creation, current- and future-state journey maps, empa- thy mapping, how might we -questions and ideation. With the outcomes, more aligned con- versations can take place with a customer focus in cross-functional teams at Port of Helsinki. Three objectives were identified and achieved in this service design project. First, Port of Helsinki moved towards more customer centric development by interviewing, analyzing and involving both the customers and stakeholders. Second, Port of Helsinki gained a reference case from the first in-house designer project of which the experience and expertise is scala- ble in the organization. Third, the pains and gains of the foot passengers at Olympia Terminal were identified and new development ideas were created which can be taken into use as part of the future work of the passenger development services. This thesis has also shown that value creation is intertwined in both concepts of customer ex- perience and customer centricity. When the customer centricity is a default way of doing things in an organization, also the customer experience will most likely be improved. It is then based on a holistic understanding of who the customer is, and what his/her needs are, and can be considered at every level and by each employee within an organization. Keywords: customer experience, customer centricity, value creation, service design, design thinking Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 6 1.1 Power shift from businesses to customers .................................................. 7 1.2 Context of the study ........................................................................... 8 1.3 Research approach and research questions .............................................. 10 1.4 Case company Port of Helsinki ............................................................. 11 1.5 Structure of the thesis ....................................................................... 13 2 Literature review – path to customer centricity and customer experience.................. 13 2.1 Goods-dominant logic perspective on value creation .................................. 14 2.2 Service-dominant logic perspective on value creation ................................. 15 2.3 Customer-dominant logic perspective on value creation .............................. 17 2.4 Customer centricity .......................................................................... 19 2.5 Customer experience ......................................................................... 26 3 Research design – Improving customer experience at Olympia Terminal .................... 28 3.1 Purpose and objectives of the research project ........................................ 29 3.2 Design thinking ................................................................................ 30 3.2.1 Service design process ............................................................... 32 3.2.2 Double-Diamond ....................................................................... 33 3.3 Discover Phase ................................................................................. 34 3.3.1 Desk research .......................................................................... 35 3.3.2 Autoethnography ...................................................................... 36 3.3.3 Semi-structured interviews .......................................................... 37 3.3.4 Observations ........................................................................... 42 3.3.5 Persona ................................................................................. 44 3.3.6 Current-state customer journey map .............................................. 46 3.4 Define phase ................................................................................... 49 3.4.1 Co-creation workshop ................................................................ 50 3.4.2 Empathy map exercise ............................................................... 52 3.4.3 How might we -questions ............................................................ 53 3.5 Develop phase ................................................................................. 53 3.5.1 Ideation ................................................................................. 54 3.5.2 Prototyping ............................................................................. 56 4 Outcomes and results .................................................................................. 58 4.1 Persona ......................................................................................... 58 4.2 Current-state customer journey ............................................................ 59 4.3 Future-state ideal customer journey ...................................................... 63 4.4 New service development ideas ............................................................ 65 4.5 Study of the state and barriers of customer centricity at Port of Helsinki ......... 66 4.6 Summary of the outcomes and results .................................................... 68 5 Conclusions and reflection ............................................................................ 69 5.1 Dialogue between the results and the knowledge basis ............................... 71 5.2 Assessment of the development activities and their results .......................... 72 5.2.1 Validity .................................................................................. 73 5.2.2 Reliability ............................................................................... 74 5.3 Future research and development areas ................................................. 75 5.4 Reflection ...................................................................................... 75 References .................................................................................................... 77 Figures ......................................................................................................... 86 Appendices .................................................................................................... 87 6 1 Introduction Ports are gateways to cities. Traditionally, the passenger terminals are considered merely as pass through venues between the ship and the destination city where people want to enter and exit as fast as possible. Port of Helsinki wants to change that conception and develop the port and its passenger terminals’ overall service offering better, as well as to contribute posi- tively to locals’ daily lives (Port of Helsinki Magazine 2019a). This is stated in the near two- year-old strategy which includes a vision of the Port of Helsinki becoming the world’s best functioning port. This is directly derived from the strategy of the Port’s owner, the City of Helsinki, of which the vision is to be the most functional city in the world (City of Helsinki 2017). Port of Helsinki sees functionality consisting of cost effectiveness, smooth traffic and logistics arrangements as well as customer satisfaction. One of the biggest changes with the new strat- egy has been the shift towards a better understanding of the customer experience of the end customer. In the port sector customers have commonly meant shipping companies and opera- tors but in the passenger traffic, the end-customer is the passenger. (Port of Helsinki Maga- zine 2018.) The focus of this thesis is to study how to improve the customer experience at the Olympia Terminal, which is one of the city center passenger ports managed by Port of Helsinki. Olym- pia Terminal