Approach.

Hermes has struggled with some negative PR about its delivery service.  Operating with a self-employed network of 18,000 couriers, it had become difficult to control the customer experience. This had become inconsistent and varied heavily on the final-mile delivery.  Hermes’ IT systems were also in need of an upgrade, and a large transformation programme was underway to rebuild the operational side of the business.  All of this work was kick-started with the appointment of a new Chief Technology Officer.

Rather than replacing what they had, the CEO and CTO both wanted to build a technology stack that worked for the customer.  This is where I got involved, leading a cross-agency team for McCann Worldgroup / IPG.

We set off by defining who the real customer was for Hermes. This was distilled down into five segments; consumers, hobbyists, businesses, corporates and couriers.  We then tackled each of these segments over 24 months following a value proposition, jobs to be done and design sprint methodology that was undertaken in collaboration with a large number of the Hermes team across different divisions, and external customers from each segment.  The bespoke discovery and define programme that I developed, allowed us to create an overarching customer roadmap and vision.

This customer roadmap was broken down and defined by a simple set of job stories. These were then broken into a series of epics which were then prioritised into being a brilliant basic, magic touch or rule buster.  We would only tackle the brilliant basics for each segment before moving to more advanced features.

These work streams were delivered by customer segment and were fed into a dedicated development team.  All of this was overseen by a programme manager at both Hermes and McCann, who would break the stories down further into development tasks for delivery.  During the project I ran and led the programme of work ensuring everyone was aligned to the customer roadmap.

Outcome.

The project was delivered in an MVP / Agile manner, with releases planned throughout the 24 month project.  The programme was handed over to Hermes’ in-house team after about 18 months.  Hermes now have product squads owning the different elements of the customer experience.  During our time on the project we developed and launched a new parcel tracking service with diversions, a send feature, mobile app with tracking, sending and returns features.  As well as a consumer-focused journey we also helped develop a strategy for their SME / business segment, corporate clients and conducted an in-depth piece of jobs to be done research with the courier network.  The courier insight is now being used to redevelop the self-employed courier experience.  The business has now successfully transformed from being an operational-led business to a customer-led business that focuses on their experience with the brand.  This has manifested in significant improvements to Hermes NPS and Trust Pilot scores. The iOS app also has a ranking of 4.5 stars over 68,000 ratings.

Methods & Tools.

The information below details a selection of the methodologies, techniques and tools used to deliver the project..