Reaching The ‘Last Mile’

Challenge

Using a network of sales agents, Kopernik’s goal is to reduce poverty by connecting hard-to-reach, ‘last-mile’ customers with simple products such as solar lighting and water filters. Because Kopernik’s target customers live in remote agricultural areas far apart from each other, it is challenging to collect enough accurate data to generate insights to improve their product offerings and customer service models.

Kopernik’s sales agents are on the front line and in a unique position to collect valuable data from a customer base that few organizations can access. However, the data Kopernik desires often do not get to them because neither sales agents nor customers see value in the same data as Kopernik and its investors. In short, Kopernik sales agents are not incentivized to consistently collect and deliver customer data.

Kopernik needed a manual data collection system that would enable and incentivize their sales agents and customers to deliver the data needs of both Kopernik and their investors.

Work

To think through this systems challenge, we needed to establish a line of communication between sales agents and customers for research and feedback purposes. We embedded a designer within Kopernik headquarters in Bali who could make multiple field visits. Working with our Kopernik designer, our work included:

• conducting research through team interviews to document and map individual and collective data needs
• interviewing sales agent´s visits to customers to comprehend their typical interactions
• prototyping and evolving numerous data-collection forms and protocols both in the field and at headquarters
• reviewing and revising the data collection forms and protocols based on what resonated most with agents and customers

Results