Apes Hill Barbados

Apes Hill is a luxury golf resort in Barbados, offering villa rentals and exclusive properties for sale. With a commitment to delivering five-star luxury experiences, Apes Hill sought to elevate the journey for both homeowners and guests. This engagement focused on identifying opportunities to enhance customer experience and service delivery across every touchpoint. 

Date
2024
Client
Apes Hill Barbados
Role
Experience Designer
Key Skills
Service Blueprint Mapping, Ideation Workshop, Idea Roadmapping
01

The Challenge

Key stakeholders identified pain points and challenges across front-stage and back-stage operations that were hindering Apes Hill's positioning as a 5-star luxury golf resort and compromising customer experience. The goal of the project was to identify areas for enhancement for both homeowners and guests, and deliver ready-to-implement ideas across touchpoints.

02

Research & Diagnosis

The project began with a deep dive into existing brand assets and customer touch points. A 5-day visit to Apes Hill enabled us to experience some of the customer activites, and conduct stakeholder and customer interviews face-to-face. Findings were plotted onto a service design blueprint, outlining key interactions as well as areas of pain point and opportunities in front stage and back stage.

Visit to Apes Hill, where we ran a client session, stakeholder interviews and customer interviews

03

Key Insights

The dignostic stage uncovered issues that span the followng areas:

  • Interdepartmental Silos
    Gaps in communication between departments led to misalignment and inconsistent service delivery.

  • Inconsistent Service Standards
    Service quality varied across guest interactions, reflecting a lack of unified standards and training.

  • Technical Inefficiencies
    Outdated systems and fragmented processes created bottlenecks, reducing responsiveness and efficiency.

  • Gaps in Front-of-Stage Roles
    Undefined roles at key guest touchpoints led to confusion and inconsistent service experiences for homeowners vs guests.

  • Lack of Alignment on Values and Vision
    Misalignment on company values and vision weakened internal culture and brand consistency.

04

Ideation

Virtual workshop was held to capture idea through 'How Might We' provocations, targetting key pain points or opportunities identified in diagnostic stage. Stakeholders formed groups, each tackling a different section of the customer journey. Ideas generated spanned experience principles defined, esuring that they tied back to pre-existing brand strategy.

Ideation workshop ran virtually with over 10 stakeholders, in groups of 3-4

05

Idea Prioritisation

Ideas were consolidated and enhanced before another stakeholder session where ideas were categorised using an ideas matrix, which idenfiied low hanging fruits vs big wins etc. High-priority ideas were visualised using Midjourney, providing Apes Hill with tangible representations of key concepts.

Ideas cards and matrix used to prioritise ideas

06

Idea Roadmapping & Implementation

Idea Roadmap

To support implementation, we developed an Idea Roadmap, a strategic document outlining clear priorities, timelines, and ownership, allowing Apes Hill to activate high-impact ideas seamlessly.

Actionable Mini Briefs

We delivered 3 detailed Mini Briefs to further support implementation. Each brief outlined:

  • Objectives and target outcomes

  • Key stakeholders involved

  • Step-by-step implementation guidelines

    These briefs empower Apes Hill’s internal teams to roll out priority experiences effectively and with confidence.

Idea Roadmap of the final 50 selected ideas, outlining impact to business vs customers

07

Results

As a testament to the project’s success, the engagement resulted in an additional workstream: the development of a Service Delivery Playbook, along with the development ofnMission Statement and Core Values for Apes Hill.

Project credits:

Freddie Scutt, Marcus Dunford