Making every Calvin Klein client feel known, through the data in their sales team’s hands.
5 days
of immersion with the Calvin Klein team
3 areas
Commercial, marketing and technology, aligned on one product
1 MVP
An MVP defined, prioritized and prototyped by the end of the week
Context
Personalized service is part of what makes Calvin Klein feel premium.
In the stores, though, associates’ routines revolved around the floor, not the client. What they knew about each person lived in their memory, if anywhere.
Conflict
The data to change that already existed in the store’s point-of-sale (POS) system.
It just never reached the people talking to the client.
Associates had no easy way to know a client’s favorite categories, when they usually shopped, or why it might be a good time to reach out.
Goal
Put that information in associates’ hands, in a simple app, so every interaction could be personal. It also had to support a shift in culture: from selling products to serving clients.
Five days to align, three teams on one product
Commercial, marketing and technology each came in with a different idea of what the app should be. Over a five-day immersion, we moved through four phases: data collection, prototyping, decision and refinement, using 12 workshop activities as tools along the way.
The first alignment came from the golden circle exercise, which set the order of priorities for everything that followed:
Why: improve the client’s experience with Calvin Klein.
What: give sales associates the information to serve each client better.
How: a mobile app with strategic, up-to-date client data.
From there, every feature had to answer to the why.
Workshops we used
- Golden circleDefine why the software exists and what to do about it
- Product visionIdentify the problem and define the vision for the software that solves it
- Is / is not / does / does not matrixRemove distractions and ambiguity, and align on what will be built
- PersonasMake sure the software fits its audience’s profile, goals and needs
- Technical and business reviewMake sure every function adds value, and question the ones that don’t justify their effort
- Risk classificationUnderstand the risk of building each function and mitigate hidden dependencies
- Risks, questions, assumptions and dependenciesIdentify what could affect scope, timeline or quality
- Real-time prototypingValidate the ideas on screen with the sales staff in the room
How I’d measure success
We didn’t have access to post-launch data, so here’s what I’d track to know if the app worked.
Adoption metrics
30-day retention: share of associates still using the app a month after their first login.
Profiles viewed per associate: average number of client profiles opened per day.
Calls logged with an outcome: share of calls where the associate records what happened.
CX & business impact
Return rate after contact: share of contacted clients who visit or buy within 30 days.
Purchase frequency: purchases per client per year, before and after launch.
Reactivation: share of inactive clients (90+ days) who buy again after a call.
UX metrics
Ease of use: SEQ score per task and SUS score after the pilot.
Error rate: selections undone or corrected in the outcome form.
More interview rounds with the sales staff to identify improvements or new features.
What I’ve learned
Start from the problem, not the feature
We walked in with a long feature list and walked out with way fewer. If a feature didn’t solve something a seller actually told us about, it was out.
Saying no is part of the design
A seller with a client in front of them doesn’t need fifteen options. They need the right two, fast. Every “no” made the “yes” stronger.
The best ideas didn’t come from designers
Some of the sharpest insights came from people who’d never opened Figma. “I just want to know what they bought last time before I say hi” is a whole screen right there. My job was asking the right questions and connecting the dots.
Put sales in the room and skip months of guessing
The sales team talks to clients every day, so they didn’t need a persona deck. In ten minutes they’d tell us who comes back every December, who only buys jeans and who hates morning calls. A lot of those stories turned into features.
Five days can go a long way
With the right people in the room and a clear focus on the problem, we went from a messy brief to a validated direction in a week.