Elegant. Intuitive. User Experience. The Age of the Customer. Design.
These are a few of the hottest terms being thrown around in discussion regarding what customers want nowadays in technology. I’ve got a great example for us to geek over and hopefully inspire you to design or tweak one of your own! I recently came across a mobile app that I found to be a brilliant customer centric design that fit the aforementioned descriptions. Of course – the best things come from unexpected places – I found it at World of Beer! It’s a franchise and they recently opened up in the west suburbs of Chicago. They believe “experience is as essential as the product.” Not only that, the experience is now in “palm of your hand.” It’s not often enough businesses remember to tie the brand promise to their customer experience mission.
The mobile app should be designed to make the most critical information easy to retrive: events, hours, location, contact information and products.
They rocked it. I think I would go as far to say it’s even better than the menu itself because it’s faster to consume the menu of 500+ beers. You can filter by ABV, color, country it’s made in, style of beer and then draft vs bottle (or both). Also, you can find the email address for each location if you want to make a customer experience report. It’s simple and intuitive.
The brick and mortar location has managed to make its app complement the bar by delivering the necessities and enhancing the customer experience before and during their time at World of Beer. In fact, when I was in Milwaukee for a tweetup I visited their location and found other patrons navigating the menu on their phones. I was one of them.
Take the Experience to the Next Level
I feel like I’m on my way to becoming a bona fide beer connoisseur! But there are some features to soup up this type of app.
1) Prices
The cost of individual beers should be listed. I’m sure some of you know what I mean when I say it’s the bedevil when I look up a menu and don’t have a clue on the prices! I’ll splurge on a Lambiac or Guiness splashed with black currant but tasty Leffe is more in my budget. Truth to be told, it won’t prevent me from going but it might make an impact on people who seriously like to budget their outings.
2) Rating the Beers
The Yelp of Beers! I could see myself using this as a reference at a restaurant or store. It’s an extensive beer dictionary. Plus, using a scoring system really help people to make decisions.
3) Localized Beer Filters
What about filtering beer by states? There’s just something appealing about drinking local beer. A sense of pride. Getting to taste something you can’t elsewhere.
4) Mobile Payment
Since they already have a loyalty program with point tracking, maybe a payment system wouldn’t be a shabby idea. Especially if we would like to order a six pack for carryout.
Here’s another testament to the growing importance of user/customer experience design: Mobile payment company Square just acquired 80/20, a design firm in NYC. Can your brand deliver your customer experience promise on a mobile device?
Are there another apps I need to geek over myself?? Will yours be one of them?
This is a modified post from my personal blog.
