Luxury Travel Has No Glass Ceiling  
(though we actually recommend you to upgrade for that)

Rocky Mountaineer

About The Client
Rocky Mountaineer is a high-end, luxury travel company that takes their guests through the Canadian Rockies by train

Project Brief
To create a customer journey map based on data gathered from conducting intensive qualitative user research

Business Impact
Uncovering opportunities to improve service touchpoints

User Impact
Better interactions and customer service from Rocky Mountaineer

My Role
Service Designer

Rocky Mountaineer is an expert when it comes to world-class luxury train travel, and their tens of thousands of guests that come flocking every year agree. Despite having a plethora of five-star reviews and a Net Promoter Score (NPS) that’s above average within the industry, there have been some one-star ratings that have slipped through the cracks, and they wanted those gaps filled–and fortified. So they hired us to discover where those gaps of opportunities are.

Diving deep into their treasure trove of data, we developed a comprehensive qualitative research plan to supplement their existing work–in which we had to get final approval from over ten stakeholders on their end. The plan we proposed featured various research activities that Rocky Mountaineer had not yet considered to conduct before, which comes from our expertise as an agency combined with the sheer vastness of their operations, and us wanting to be inclusive of every perspective on their side.

Navigating the Journeys of Our Guests

Fun Fact: This Document "Broke" Adobe Acrobat
I can only show a snippet of this map because it's HUGE! To print out the entire map end-to-end (using a typical office printer), you'd need nine landscape-oriented pages of tabloid size (11" x 17") paper!

A customer journey map is one of the best tools for us to use in finding opportunity gaps within complex service flows. This artifact helped us understand where pain points happened (we defined a "pain point" as anything that would prevent customers from enjoying the process of trip-planning and/or their actual trip). In turn, we located where opportunities for business improvements were.

Above is a snippet of the map we designed, reflecting the 2018/2019 guest experience at Rocky Mountaineer. The major phases we identified–in which guests would interact with the brand–are: (1) Awareness & Consideration, (2) Research, (3) Booking, (4) Awaiting Travel, (5) In Travel, and (6) Post Travel. From a data point of view, this map reflects eight months worth of deep qualitative discovery work and analysis. The following activities are what we did to get all of our information: 

• Organizing and analyzing existing documentation and research  
• Hosting subject matter expert (SME) interviews
  
• Facilitating customer interviews (reflecting every stage of travel)
• Distributing and collecting customer surveys
• Job shadowing in different departments at Rocky Mountaineer HQ
• Mystery shopping
• Carrying out competitive and comparative audits
• The team taking a train trip to Banff for direct observation

Fun Fact: this was my first time on a proper train. I was so stoked!

Uncovering Key Behavioural Personas

Persona Matrix
Rocky Mountaineer guests can fall on the following spectrums–
• X-axis: Low-touch to High-touch Service
• Y-axis: "Self-designed Travel" to "Ready Made Travel"

What we found enlightening was that people could switch personas depending on who they're travelling with (e.g. their spouse & family vs. their group of friends).

Qualitative data is more robust when we learn about the people behind it–and I don't mean demographics. (After all, age is nothing but a number!) Throughout our discovery work, we sought out to understand, contextualize, and find patterns about the behaviours, motivations, pain points, goals, needs, and values of potential personas. This gave us a clearer picture of the audiences we must cater to, so that our solutions would be more effective. Based on a rich set of insights, we developed a matrix that perfectly maps out four major personas we found based on two differentiating spectrums: the level of service they require (x-axis), and whether they want more autonomy over their itinerary or a convenient, don't-need-to-think-twice, all-in-one package (y-axis).

Rather than build four separate journey maps for each persona–which would be redundant and overlapping in our case–we designed one exhaustive map that highlighted special distinctions throughout. Below are two detailed persona profiles at opposing ends of the matrix.

Making Research Insights Fun to Look At

Illustration Concept Proposals
Translating a large map to be more visual was a challenge, but here's what we "Frankenstein'd" to create the poster we have above:

1. First idea is inspired by "knolling photography" and collage

2. Second idea is inspired by video games (like a "mini world")

3. Last idea is a comic book

We did such an incredible job with the final customer journey map that Rocky Mountaineer printed and framed the entire thing to decorate their HQ's walls. They also commissioned me to illustrate a simplified version (above) which serves as a more approachable resource for their seasonal and remote teams. Consolidated parts of the map that we chose to highlight are what we call "meaningful moments". These are defined as touchpoints of the customer journey that could make or break the entire guest experience.

Below, are the preliminary illustration concepts that I sketched and proposed to the stakeholders.

Good Ideas Come From Even Better Data

How it started:

How it went:

With our research and map(s) in hand, our final task was to facilitate an "Opportunities Brainstorm" workshop that involved all team members and stakeholders. Armed with new, expansive knowledge and clear gaps to fill, our final collaborative session was the most inspiring and hopeful of them all. Rocky Mountaineer was left with a ton of insights, ideas, and artifacts.

To describe the journey of this project would be similar to trudging though a thick layer of fog. For awhile, we could only see a tiny bit ahead of us, and to understand the full landscape, we had to diverge and prioritize on breadth by covering more ground. By the end of it, it was easy for all of us to see a bright future for Rocky Mountaineer. One could definitely say that this was a journey for the books!

According to Our Research... 🤓

My Unsponsored Personal Review of Rocky Mountaineer: 

This is my first train ride ever, but I already know that upgrading your train trip to the GoldLeaf Service will be WORTH IT! Seeing the majestic Rockies, forest-bathing, and spotting wildlife along your ride is ideal this way because of the glass ceiling! Make sure you bring sunglasses or a hat! The food menu is exquisite as it is delicious–I was happily stuffed after every (3-course) meal. Only con is that souvenirs are more expensive than I expected.

1. Eavesdropping is the best form of discovery

To truly understand your audience is to witness customer service in action, and in this case, to be customers ourselves! The most reliable and eye-opening information we gathered came from any instance where we acted as "flies on the wall". Job shadowing and the train trip brought out the most insights. For the Engine Digital team to accomplish these tasks properly, we ensured that more than one person did these activities in parallel and that it would be conducted across multiple days. In this way, any patterns noted could be double-checked and cross-examined.

2. If an insight can't be backed up in three different ways, it's not a key insight

We were lucky because we worked with a client who valued data. Yet, this also meant that our work was observed under a hot, hot microscope! They had a lot of existing documents and quantitative analysis to share with us, and they gave us the green light on various qualitative research activities to conduct. By the end of it, we were swimming in information and were challenged to distill everything down so our 10+ stakeholders from across the company could understand and align. If you could only see all our colour-coded spreadsheets and keynote decks!

3. A pandemic doesn't stop for anyone

2020 was the year that we were going to find out if our recommendations proved higher NPS scores. Due to travel and tourism taking a major economic hit, Rocky Mountaineer has had to shift gears and reprioritize.