Creating a Connected Traveler Experience
Overview
The modern traveler experience involves a lot of touchpoints. There's checking in, booking a flight, arranging activities, which can all get very cumbersome if spread across different systems. Marriott Vacation Club came looking for a connected customer experience to improve user travel. This meant defining customer-interactions and maintaining the resulting data under one simple system.
Role & Timeframe
UI/UX Designer
Branding, Wireframing, Concept Development, Prototyping,
High-Fidelity Mockups
Salesforce - 2019
The Problem
The current vacationer experience is disconnected and results in a lack of visibility on behalf of the employees. This leads to an inability to personalize the customer journey and loses CSAT/market share to competitors who put the user first.
UPFRONT DISCOVERY
Traversing the Travel Sector
It was extremely important to understand early on where the pain points were for the traveler and the business. Working alongside our research team we collected user surveys for both internal employees and travelers. We needed to know what sort of information they needed access to and if customers were willing to provide it.
70
%
Need to Be Seamless
Customers say connected processes are very important to win their business (such as seamless handoffs between departments and channels, or contextualized engagement based on earlier interactions)
%
85
Anticipate Needs
Travelers said they will share relevant information about themselves in exchange for a proactive customer service
57
%
Loyalty is Critical
Vacationers thave stopped buying from a company because a competitor provided a better experience
While important to understand the broader sector, it was also essential to better identify the issues unique to the Marriott business...
PAIN POINTS
Siloed Customer Profiles
Existing profiles were disconnected, stuck within multiple systems. This led to poor customer visibility on behalf of Marriott employees. You can see how pulling information from each can start to build a complete customer profile.
Destina: Aruba Vacation
Commerce ID
Email: ssmith@gmail
Party: 4 people
Name: Sam Smith
Service ID
Case #: 45DF5432
Agent: Melinda Dae
RESEARCH & STRATEGY
Breaking Down the Traveler Experience
We quickly identified that the travel experience has many intricate touchpoints. While we wanted to create a holistic solution, it was first important to establish the key legs of a typical travel experience. By breaking this down I was able to start to ideate on what solutions would align with each sub-category.
Pre-Trip
Inspiration, Initial Research, and Browsing
Purchasing Decision
Preparation to Travel
On Property
Travel to Destination
Initial Check-In
Arrive at Room
Events & Activities
Restaurants & Amenities
Spa & Excursions
Post-Trip
Check Out Process
Travel Back Home
Loyalty & Feedback
WIREFRAMING
Initial Ideation
When starting to draft and design the initial experience I was able to uncover new areas of engagement for the customer. It also wound up being a good exercise in figuring out how the app would adapt to the user's journey. I was able to explore what items would need to be baked throughout the app vs shown at specific points.
Ease in Branding
Early on in projects, I like to start experimenting with brand elements which allows me to get a visual sense for the app and feel. In this case it meant sourcing a wide variety of vacation relevant imagery to convey the anticipation of a trip and modern concierge-like interface.
INCORPORATING FEEDBACK
Key Takeaways
After creating a few sample wireframes and consulting with our account team I got a better sense of what information is a priority for the guest and what can be saved for later updates. This spurred some key adjustments for the final output.
1
Smart recommendations for new experiences or trips will incentivize usage even when not traveling.
2
3
An itinerary will need to be a central focus for users to plan their journey, they'll appreciate having a schedule to follow.
Explore real-time chatbot capability that could be available throughout the app.
4
Try to personalize the experience as much as you can for the customer. Look for opportunities on loading/landing screens.
5
The weather is probably not going to be needed in-app, available more easily elsewhere.
INCORPORATING FEEDBACK
Multi-Cloud Experience
Below you'll see the final outputs that were delivered back to the customer. The multi-cloud Salesforce solution was meant to target the different areas of a consumer's trip. By tying in the experience from pre-trip screening, to post trip account management, we were able to provide a holistic solution for the customer that would maintain brand loyalty.
User Onboarding
Marriott needed a way to capture user preferences early on to start building out a customer profile. This self-service quiz allowed travelers to get smart recommendations based on their travel preferences for a more personalized pre-trip experience that also cuts down on planning time.
PRE-TRIP
PRE-TRIP
Engagement
Once captured, there was an opportunity to leverage the traveler data with intelligent, personalized emails to the customer. Here shows a "countdown email" featuring the traveler's name and destination adding a level of 1 to 1 marketing.
ON PROPERTY
Easy Self-Service
Based on our research, the On-Property experience had the most areas of possible improvement. Having a central location to find helpful FAQ and knowledge articles tackled a lot of the guest experience. The addition of an itinerary builder allows travelers the structure to plan out their days and set a schedule. With embedded transportation suggestions, I wanted to design a seamless experience, even considering a prompted "snap & share" to show the opportunity for further loyalty promotion.
FAQ Self-Service
Itinerary View
Activity Detail Page
Engagement Incentive
POST TRIP
Account Management
Loyalty is a big component of the travel space which requires a high level of "stickiness" in such a competitive market. To continue the experience beyond the app, I leveraged Salesforce's community product to give travelers a single-source portal to oversee all of their brand engagement. This includes an overview of previous trips, support center access, as well as point-based rewards. Going one step further, using Trailhead, Salesforce's easy learning platform, allows Jen to learn on the go and gain travel tips or planning insight.
CONNECTING THE JOURNEY
End-to-End Customer Experience
Outlining the key interaction points and what Salesforce products were leveraged during the experience. This was a common output for our customers to understand the full breadth of our product coverage. It detailed the experience in a digestible format.
Design Feeback
The designs and overall experience were very well received by the clients and they understood the value of connecting the touchpoints outlined during discovery. Following the delivery, the clients wanted to take the designs and test the interactions with customers to come back with additional user feedback in hopes of developing out the final product.
