Scaling a service experience

Overview

Following the successful launch of the Oncology Price Estimator, I was asked to evaluate whether Charles River Labs could scale the self-service quoting model to its Safety Assessment business unit. The goal was to assess customer appetite, validate feasibility, and determine if automation could add value without compromising trust or efficiency.

Organisation

Charles River Labs

My responsibilities

Strategic Research, Mapping, Co-creation Facilitation, UX Flows, Prototype Testing

Challenge

With the Oncology’s quoting tool succeeding commercially, internal teams hoped that the model could be ‘lifted and shifted.’ However, Safety’s quoting process was more complex and fragmented, with inconsistent data and diverse customer needs.

Workshopping with stakeholders
Workshopping with stakeholders

Approach

Scoping and strategy → Framed the study around desirability, feasibility, and viability; defined success criteria and research questions to surface quoting friction, self-service expectations, and barriers to scale. Mixed-methods research → Combined ethnographic observation of sales calls, VoC interviews/focus groups (25+ stakeholders), timeline/conversion analysis, competitor review, and mapping to visualise workflows, dependencies, and bottlenecks. Co-creation and testing → Facilitated a 25-person workshop with Leadership, Sales, Product, and Tech to align on needs and co-create hypotheses; partnered with a designer on wireframes/prototype and tested with 12 participants to validate clarity, value, and risk.

Approach

Scoping and strategy → Framed the study around desirability, feasibility, and viability; defined success criteria and research questions to surface quoting friction, self-service expectations, and barriers to scale. Mixed-methods research → Combined ethnographic observation of sales calls, VoC interviews/focus groups (25+ stakeholders), timeline/conversion analysis, competitor review, and mapping to visualise workflows, dependencies, and bottlenecks. Co-creation and testing → Facilitated a 25-person workshop with Leadership, Sales, Product, and Tech to align on needs and co-create hypotheses; partnered with a designer on wireframes/prototype and tested with 12 participants to validate clarity, value, and risk.

Logica UI mock-ups
Logica UI mock-ups

Impact + Outcomes

Approach

The research helped shift the team from ‘build now’ to a phased approach, and to prioritise data integrity, integration, and governance before tooling. • Leadership paused the build, saving months of effort while protecting long-term scalability • Delivered new Safety Buyer Personas, plus quick-win improvements for Commercial teams, including quoting scripts, data glossary and workflow tweaks • Strengthened ResearchOps with reusable templates and Dovetail tagging, and supported wider capability through coaching and shared ownership.

Scoping and strategy → Framed the study around desirability, feasibility, and viability; defined success criteria and research questions to surface quoting friction, self-service expectations, and barriers to scale. Mixed-methods research → Combined ethnographic observation of sales calls, VoC interviews/focus groups (25+ stakeholders), timeline/conversion analysis, competitor review, and mapping to visualise workflows, dependencies, and bottlenecks. Co-creation and testing → Facilitated a 25-person workshop with Leadership, Sales, Product, and Tech to align on needs and co-create hypotheses; partnered with a designer on wireframes/prototype and tested with 12 participants to validate clarity, value, and risk.

Impact

The research helped shift the team from ‘build now’ to a phased approach, and to prioritise data integrity, integration, and governance before tooling. • Leadership paused the build, saving months of effort while protecting long-term scalability • Delivered new Safety Buyer Personas, plus quick-win improvements for Commercial teams, including quoting scripts, data glossary and workflow tweaks • Strengthened ResearchOps with reusable templates and Dovetail tagging, and supported wider capability through coaching and shared ownership.

Previous — Redesigning sales

Previous — Redesigning sales

Previous — Redesigning sales

Previous — Redesigning sales

Previous — Redesigning sales

Previous — Redesigning sales

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Next — Collaborative AI

Next — Collaborative AI

Next — Collaborative AI

Next — Collaborative AI

Next — Collaborative AI

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