HOPLOP
New service development for Finland's number one indoor playgrounds
HopLop is Finland’s number one in indoor playgrounds. If you are a parent in Finland with a kid between 0-11 years old, chances are high that you have visited a HopLop park. Despite the visibility of the brand, competition is tough and new ideas are needed to keep families entertained and to meet their diverse needs.
In the process to renew HopLop’s strategy, we were invited as a service design partner to help kick off the plan to introduce new services that would raise the utilisation rate of the parks and bring growth to the company.
Approach
HopLop wants to be the best place for the whole family, not just for kids. Although children love to spend time in the parks, parents may find it challenging to find the time, especially when days are typically packed with other activities. Preliminary research and customer feedback have shown the need for developing a service that would offer the opportunity for families to let kids play at the park under the supervision of the staff.
We were assigned a task to develop ”HopLop guided activities”, a new concept for families who do not visit the parks as regularly and might be looking for something a little more special for their kids. The project started with a set of customer interviews to validate the need for such a service and enrich it with qualitative insights that would be used as a base for the development of the service, while interviews with HopLop staff revealed the challenges to be considered when defining the operating model.
Three scenarios were then developed with HopLop staff and tested with customers in a workshop organised remotely to allow families from different parts of Finland to join in and give comments on the new service idea. Finally, the winning concept was further developed with an in-house team at HopLop and then presented through a pilot plan to the rest of the organisation in a final workshop. Two pilots were then organised over summer and fall 2022.
Results
The customer insights revealed that HopLop is already seen as a great place for kids to be active – which is one of the main factors attracting families to visit the parks. Moreover, enabling kids to visit a HopLop on their own and play under the supervision of the park staff was seen as a good opportunity, although having a place where the whole family can spend quality time together was also deemed important.
Disco parties were seen as one of the most appealing concepts in all of the customer interviews, and they represent an opportunity for HopLop in the area of guided activities. Discos were chosen as the first pilot for the new business and operating model.
During the project we developed the customer journey and service model required for operating such a service. We also worked closely with the HopLop team in order to develop the pricing logic and allocation of staff roles for the pilot.
Vaasa, Joensuu and Vantaa were selected as the pilot locations due to the different sizes of the parks, their connection to public transportation, and the diverse customer bases that visit them. Most importantly, the pilots were seen to potentially offer important information on pricing models and scheduling with the idea of making such services available to as many customers as possible.
The learnings gathered from the disco pilots will be used to iterate our service model for guided activities, and to support the launch of new ones in the future.
“We’re getting the first pilot up and running. You were so inspiring and encouraging. There were a lot of insights gathered from both ourselves and our customers, which you were able to provide in a structured and informative package. All in all, we are now in a better place for planning the service concepts to come.”
HopLop staff
