Bain: RewardsCo
Design Lead
An international airline approached Bain with the goal of keeping its customers more engaged and connected with the brand through a rewards app where they could earn and redeem points. The scope of the project was to provide the client with a vision and a significant jump start to the design, not 100% of the app.
Research
Due to the airline being from a foreign country with different cultural norms than ours in the USA, the product manager and I needed to get into the mindset of their customers. We set up customer interviews to learn about their attitude towards and usage of rewards programs. This was actually one of my favorite parts of the project and these discoveries wouldn’t have happened without conducting these interviews.
Learning #1
People love their rewards systems so much that nearly everyone participates.
Learning #2
People ask almost every vendor and waiter if their store or restaurant supports the particular reward program. This drives where they spend their money.
Learning #3
People don’t mind receiving 5-10 daily notifications even if 90% of them are not relevant.
Product Vision and Definition
In conjunction with the client, product manager, and consultant team, we defined the primary user journeys and product requirements which were informed by the user research. Since the goal of this project was to set a vision for the app, not design 100% of it, we decided to design the two primary user journeys. In each of those journeys we captured the and the key features and product requirements.
User Journey #1
An existing customer logs into the app for the first time, personalizes the offers she’ll receive, and then quickly enrolls in a campaign to earn points.
User Journey #2
After a location-based notification prompts the user to complete a campaign, the user does so and then takes the earned points and redeems them for a flight she has been wanting to book.
How might we make the numerous offer notifications meaningful?
Based on the user research, we learned that people receive tons of notifications they don’t find useful. They put up with them so they don’t miss a good deal, but by no means do they like all the useless notifications. Instead, we wanted to make sure the offers and notifications were relevant and valuable to the users. By asking users to select preferences or interests, we take a step towards better deals.
How might we make it as frictionless as possible to enroll in a campaign?
The primary actions need to be simple and the UI cannot get in the way. For enrolling in a campaign, there are no consequences for enrolling. That means users want to enroll quickly but also have the option to see more details of the campaign. In this case, the user can tap the plus button to enroll right on this screen while tapping anywhere else will allow the user to see the details view of this campaign.
Deliverables & Results
At the end of two the week project, my primary deliverable was a Flinto prototype. Instead of static screens in a PDF, the prototype allowed the client to better understand my vision for the product by tapping through the product on their own iPhone. The clients loved it and are currently working on building out the full app to ship in 2018. Here are a couple quotes from the Bain team who managed the relationship with the client:
“All our client maps have already downloaded Flinto and they are playing with the prototype! Really unbelievable – They are showing the prototype to each other during meetings!! And they plan show this prototype to partner brands to illustrate how we are going to deliver the offers.”
Case Team Lead
Bain & Company
“We became your biggest fans through this wonderful experience of our collaboration and our clients now have a distinctively digital-savvy perception of Bain & Company thanks to your can-do attitude, great enthusiasm and domain expertise.”
Partner
Bain & Company
And lastly, check out the video I created of the design and prototype. We've used video as a way to share our designs and prototypes to clients and Bain partners. I actually had never done any video editing prior to this project, so I learned on the fly.