How Cirque Coffee’s Integrated Ordering & Payment Ecosystem Enabled Company Growth During the Pandemic
UGH, COVID
Need I say more about The Problem? It’s as if Cirque had a crystal ball because we started this work in September 2019. When Cirque decided to launch their café in a shipping container (yep, you read that right), they needed a digital solution to streamline operations and boost customer experience.
Our mission was to build a multi-platform ecosystem that included:
a mobile ordering app with payment processing
a kitchen display system integrated with Clover POS
an admin portal for managers
This would decrease time taking orders and improve both the customer and employee experience at Cirque. It would also reduce costs and simplify workflows—ultimately supporting business expansion. The contactless system was especially valuable when the pandemic hit months later.
Discovery
My design partner and I kicked off the project with stakeholder interviews to gain insight into Cirque's broader vision. As I listened to the conversations, I started thinking outside the box (or rather, the container ship) and realized we needed a layer of service design that tied to our integrated products as I visualized and understood the impact of parking lot logistics on ordering.
Customers could:
order via mobile app prior to arrival and have their coffee delivered to their car
walk up and order at the shop window, or
choose the drive-thru which included ordering on site.
Outcomes
By visualizing the user flows *including* the aspects outside of the digital product, the owners were able to draw conclusions about the fit-out and make decisions that would not only create a great user experience for customers but also their staff. We were able to move forward with a clear understanding of the physical space and tie that to the design of the products.
I'll have a strong latte
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I'll have a strong latte *
Design
Next, we refined the user stories from the PRD, evaluating the importance of each task and taking a holistic approach that considered all user types and user journeys. The UX in the mobile app and the barista app needed to be customized to facilitate those journeys seamlessly.
For example, when a customer completed checkout, their journey was not over. Upon arrival, they needed to mark themselves as “Arrived.” This would trigger the state of the order in the barista app to change, alerting staff that the customer was there. Not only that, but the runner could also view those details on the kitchen display system and easily see the order status, and if ready, where the order needed to go (ie. to James in the blue Honda Fit).
The Admin Portal
In addition to the consumer and barista apps, we also needed a portal for managers to carry out tasks such as changing menu items, handling location-specific operations, canceling orders and creating push notifications.
Wild story—when we were working on this, a very pertinent example arose when someone accidentally crashed into the cafe with their car! (No one was hurt.) The owners needed to be able to close the location immediately!
Development & Testing
Throughout the design phase, my partner and I had regular meetings with the developers to get their input, answer questions, solve potential problems, and iron out the sprint plan so that they could get started while we continued iterating. Miro was our collaboration tool.
During development, I was a point person, updating the spec/Jira tickets with adjustments and ensuring design fidelity.
Before launch, we did a beta test, carried out bug fixes and made adjustments, but the bottom line was that we didn’t get too much feedback that would require major changes for the MVP, just feature requests we had already prioritized in the backlog for a fast-follow after launch.
The product went live Feb 2021 and the opening of Cirque was success. We have many happy customers who have given us 4.9 stars in the Apple Store and Google Play.
Impact
Our integrated solution for Cirque helped the company reduce costs by streamlining operations, enhancing employee efficiency, and creating a seamless customer experience with an intuitive app and payment system. This contributed to Cirque's successful nationwide expansion.
For our agency, the project enabled us to white-label parts of our solution, including the kitchen display system, and make it available to other businesses. We also rebranded and adapted the Simple KDS for wider use, now available for Android.
The success with Cirque helped us demonstrate our capabilities to prospective clients, ultimately securing the business of Kung Fu Tea, where we brought their custom app to life.