I led a small business team and customers through a collaborative process of identifying new business opportunities and guidelines.
Challenge
Due to COVID restrictions on indoor group activities in 2020, the client (a music education business) wanted to start offering outdoor classes, but they were unsure of potential locations, times, or guidelines to preserve their brand in an outdoor setting. I led the charge to find prospective outdoor locations, establish optimal class times and develop class guidelines.
Proposal
Workshop prospective outdoor locations with customers and discuss additional considerations with the client’s teaching team.
Strategy
Outdoor classes were a new offering for the client, and because they were held in a public space (which was already heavily used in densely populated pandemic-era NYC), we needed to pay special attention to specific situations.
How I collaborated
I invited the client’s customers to book “musical playdates” with a small number of friends at an outdoor location of their choice. I redesigned the client’s registration page to mark available playdate day/time slots. Based on preliminary user feedback, I developed draft outdoor guidelines for classes, workshopped them with the teaching team, and confirmed that our desired class format complied with the NYC Parks’ regulations on amplifications, furniture and numbers of peeople gathered.
Considerations from collaboration partners included:
- Class format/content: I found that different subgroups of customers had wildly different expectations for outdoor music classes.
- Flexibility: I learned that a successful outdoor location could change from one week to the next due to last-minute considerations (noise, dust, rain, temperature).
- Competition: Public spaces in NYC are often small and noisy, and it was common for several group activities to be happening in the same location.
- Safety: In an outdoor location, caregivers had to invest more energy in running after their toddlers.
Results
- From the diverging expectations about outdoor classes, I developed guidelines that reflected the client’s goal of providing joyful musical immersion for children and their caregivers.
- The client’s customers enthusiastically responded to outdoor musical playdates, identified several potential outdoor class locations (near their favorite playgrounds, etc.), and invited other families to join them.
- For each proposed location, I conducted further research into competing group activities and coordinated with them to determine the most promising class times for the client.
- The role of the teacher for outdoor classes involved new responsibilities, such as maintaining closer contact with students, especially in case of last-minute location changes.
- The client’s customers were motivated to help maintain the musical immersion, redirect children, and keep the intrusions (dogs and wildlife) at bay.
Main takeaways
In an attempt to identify new business opportunities, I prioritized user input at all stages. The development of outdoor class offerings took careful thought, creative adaptation of the client’s brand, and consideration of additional stakeholders specific to open public spaces (passersby, other activity groups and outdoor space regulations). As a result of our efforts, the client has not only added outdoor classes to their offerings, but they have also found that these classes serve as an effective promotional tool.