Benjamin Ahrens

Independent · Large-format retail

• Logged 60 friction moments on shift across a three-week, evening-weighted window in a single store; 45 recurred on every or most shifts.
• Clustered entries into nine operational themes scored on frequency, severity, safety, sales impact, scalability, and effort — five carried P1 priority, and every one proved structural rather than behavioral.
• Traced symptoms to root cause and designed a six-phase pilot with named owners per theme, three leading and lagging measures, and a documented objection set covering capture burden, signal ownership, and prioritization authority.

Concept study · Three-surface design

• Mapped an eight-stage customer journey from project need through post-visit perception, identifying emotion, friction, and cross-department handoffs at each stage.
• Designed three surfaces, each doing one job, that convert a stuck customer into a located request the store can own — delivered as wireframes with pilot measures and a public correction log.

Duke's Detailing LLC — Austin, TX

• Designed the service end to end — three offering tiers, a no-card booking flow, on-site delivery standards, payment, and post-service follow-up — then operate it daily and revise from what breaks.
• Built a per-vehicle condition report as a deliberate trust touchpoint, giving customers evidence of the work and creating a natural point for expansion conversations.
• Own the brand system, service voice, and customer communications across every touchpoint from booking to follow-up.

National home improvement retailer — Austin, TX

• Frontstage retail; source of the field study above.

Jonestown Police Department — Jonestown, TX

• Volunteered for and championed recurring quantitative data collection — traffic speed studies, rabies-vaccination awareness campaigns, and community programs — designing collection methods and presenting findings to decision makers.
• Analyzed how public-facing processes fail under pressure and recommended changes upstream of failure; communicated with audiences from residents to command staff.

Travis County Sheriff's Office — Austin, TX

• Designed and delivered staff training on policy, procedure, and de-escalation — backstage enablement built to hold up when conditions change.

CarMax — Austin, TX

• Worked inside a deliberately designed no-haggle service model, delivering a customer journey where transparency replaces price negotiation. Ranked consistently among the top five sales consultants in the region.

RML Labs — Austin, TX

• Time-critical specimen transport; chain of custody.

Houlihan's and Fat Daddy's — Olathe, KS

• Front and back of house.