New ways of working to drive product innovation

If someone offers you a free coffee next time you’re at the post office, don’t be alarmed. The coffee – or perhaps a voucher – is a penny for your thoughts. Australia Post wants to know what’s bothering its customers and how it can make their lives easier through digital innovation.

“It’s part of what we call user-centred design methodology, which puts the customer and user at the centre of everything we do,” Australia Post’s General Manager Trusted Solutions Centre, Carl Rigoni, says. This means listening to the real challenges of real customers and using these insights to drive development of new digital products and services.

Start with asking the customer

Here’s an example of how Australia Post’s new approach works. Can you remember the last time you moved house or office and what a pain it was notifying everyone of your new address? Imagine if you could notify your bank, insurers, utilities providers and many other organisations with just a few clicks of your mouse.

In late 2015, Australia Post asked customers at several post offices for their thoughts on change of address notification (COAN). The overwhelming feedback was that people were extremely busy when they moved house and the notification process was a time-consuming irritant.

Brainstorm it, test it, take it to market

Within days, an Australia Post team started brainstorming ideas on how COAN could be made quicker and easier through an online digital product. More feedback from customers showed that people preferred to log in as a guest rather than having to create a profile; the main organisations they wanted to notify were energy companies, telcos (phone and internet providers), insurance companies, banks a