Design a vending machine to be placed in Hotel/Motels? [Microsoft Product Interview Question]

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This is a potential Product Design Question for a PM interview

Interviewer: You are PM at a vending machine company. Your CEO asks you to design a new line of vending machines to be placed at Hotels/Motels. What would you do?

Shailesh: Okay, let me clarify the scope and understand the situation. Since the vending machine can be of different types like a vending machine for packed snacks and beverages, it can be of electronics items, medicines, etc. Any specific type of vending machine are we going to make? I think we can go ahead with food and packed items because some of the travellers travel at odd hours, and restaurants and hotels might have closed by that time. What do you think?
Interviewer: Yes, go ahead with packed snack items.

Shailesh: Is this a luxurious hotel or an affordable one? I am assuming this vending machine is going to be placed on each floor in the hotels.
Interviewer: Yes, this is an affordable one.

Shailesh: One more thing, any other resource and time constraint should I be aware of? I am asking this because the time constraint may play a role in deciding features to be built in the MVP.
Interviewer: Okay, let’s assume it has to be delivered in a year.

Shailesh: Alright, let me reiterate the goal of the problem; we have to design a snacking vending machine for an affordable hotel/motel.
Interviewer: Yes, go ahead.

Shailesh: The way I would like to approach this problem is first will see our customer segment and their user journey and, depending on that, will look at some of the pain points. After prioritising the pain points, we can see some potential solutions, prioritise them and then measure the corresponding success metrics. Last we can think of some of the potential tradeoffs or some future aspects of the solution.
Interviewer: Yes, go ahead.

Shailesh: Let us see the different customer segments.

Customer Segments

1. Travellers
2. Hotel staff members
3. Vending Machine maintenance team

I would like to focus on the Travelers customer segment because they are the ones who will be using it most. Let’s see the different Travelers user personas.

User Personas

1. Travellers who are new to the city come for vacation; after an exhausting day, they want to grab something to eat quickly.
2. Business travellers who travel for their office meetings to a different city and in general travel at odd hours
3. Physically challenged people or blind people may also use the vending machine when the kitchen is closed.

All of the above personas can be a potential user persona, but If I see the total addressable market, I would like to focus on Business travellers. Travellers who come for vacation may have eaten outside before coming to the hotel.

Let’s see some of the use cases or pain points for Business travellers.

Use Cases/Pain Points

1. As a business traveller, I should be able to locate the vending machine easily.
2. As a business traveller, I should know what things are available in the vending machine?
3. I should be able to get the ordered items easily; even in the case of multiple items, I should be able to get them in one go.
4. I should be able to pay readily without juggling cash and changes.

Solutions/Features

1. There can be multiple infographics on each floor to help users navigate the Vending machine.
2. A vending machine should have 3–4 sections like beverages, snacks, healthy products, desserts etc.
3. A vending machine should have a sensor; a person can scan his room key card to access the vending machine; it should have a touch screen and the buttons that help a person order the items.
4. Alternately, there can be QR codes in each room as well as near the vending machine, scanning which can open the web app, where the person should be able to see the Vending machine’s location.
5. After locating the vending machine, you can just enter a code “room number-last name” to open the vending machine menu where you should be able to search - What are the available items; you can add multiple items to the cart order them. After ordering, you can scan the QR code again to get the item that you have ordered.
6. We can link the digital wallets or give an option to automatically charge his account, which he can pay at checkout.
7. We can also use drone delivery, in which if the user has ordered something from a vending machine, then the drone or robot will deliver the item quickly to his/her doorstep.

Prioritisation:

1. QR codes in each room assisting travellers in ordering straight away from the room is a high impact solution because it will allow users to see the menu of the vending machine and order from their room — a post which they can scan the QR code they’re to access their items.
2. Linking digital wallets and linking hotel accounts to pay is also of high impact; lazy pay may increase the cart value of the user.

Success metrics

1. # of QR code scans per day.
2. Average cart value per user in a month.
3. The average time taken from scanning QR to placing an order per user.

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