Domio was a technology platform focused on the travel sector, encompassing real estate, hospitality, and design with an emphasis on social connections. The company offered curated vacation rentals and branded apartment-hotels, focused on group travelers. Their mission was to connect the world through travel. 

DOMIO REWARDS

Domio’s first rewards program was created to incentivize repeat and direct bookings. To measure success, my team is tracking repeat guests by cohort. Upon launching, we expect an increase in repeat guests over time.

 

WHAT

UX/UI

Research

Testing

Team

Lead Designer -- Myself

Product Manager — Ryan Kwok

Engineers — Zachary Lithgow, Alex Koppara

Marketing team

DURATION

4 Months

Launch date

2020 March

Device

Responsive web

TOOLS

Sketch

Invision

Abstract

Principle

AfterEffects

Usertesting.com

JIRA

OBJECTIVE

To design an engaging experience that will encourage guests to repeat and directly book with Domio. This experience may help us understand and improve future designs and other retention products. 

Challenge

As a new company, this is Domio’s first rewards program and opportunity to engage more with their guests. Therefore, this program will serve as a great learning tool in understanding more about Domio guests - their wants, needs, pain-points, behaviors, why they booked with Domio, etc. (important data we continue to learn from). This MVP product will help guide future iterations and will act as our first model for more retention products down the road. 

research

Why create a rewards program? 

  • Increase number of direct booking and user retention (guests are able book a stay with Domio through other third party websites)

  • Create lasting brand loyalty and value so that guests return frequently

  • Direct communication with guests

  • Collect customer data and understand our user’s behaviors, habits, and interests

    • This can help with future inventory mgmt, pricing, and promotional planning

  • According to Annex Cloud’s own customer loyalty statistics—taken from their clients who have shown that a well implemented loyalty program can achieve the following:

    • Loyalty programs increase overall revenue by 5-10%

    • Loyalty members spend 5-20% more than non-members on average

    • Loyalty program members buy 5-20% more frequently than non-members

Punch card vs. Points

With so many existing reward systems, we wanted to implement a simple design in which our users were already familiar with and could quickly onboard in no time. Therefore, we decided to go with the ‘punch card system’ for our first retention product. I did a competitive analysis on what other small and big industry players are doing. 

 

To read more about my research, you can view this deck.

 

Most of the bigger players are using point and tier systems, whereas smaller companies are using a punch card concept. We hope as Domio grows, that we will reach that same potential. But as a new company and rolling out our first program - going with a punch card system made the most sense in regards to cost, resource, time, and efficiency. 

 
 

how it works

With a Domio account, guests will have immediate access to the rewards program. The structure of this program is a punch card system. Stay 10 nights, and receive 1 night in value. After the 10th night stay, the average daily rate of the 10 nights is calculated, and that value is added to the guest’s account. 

Guests can track their rewards through their personalized rewards dashboard (which can be found in their Accounts when logged in). Within the dashboard, they can redeem value into coupon codes, which can be used on a new reservation. Only direct bookings are eligible towards this program. 

Guest receives an email notification to redeem their reward

 

final product

landing page

rewards dashboard

user testing

Get $250 vs. Free Night Stay

Unlike most punch card programs, Domio is not promoting a “Free night stay” after guests accumulate 10 nights. Instead we are saying “Get $250”. Preliminary user tests (via usertesting.com) have shown that users responded better to the dollar value, and saying “Free night” raised questions and skepticism. Our past reservations data also indicated that the average daily rate across all Domio reservations is $274 - we simply rounded down. (There is an asterisk next to the value to clearly denote that this is an estimate.)

Coupon codes

To redeem coupon codes, guests must enter or use the slider to input the amount of value they’d like to redeem. Once redeemed, it will appear in the table below where they can use the copy icon to copy the code to enter at checkout. Through various user testing sessions, we found that users enjoyed having two options to enter the value. Some users mentioned that having a slider added a nice visual break to the content and tables. 

We want to promote share-ability by allowing guests to redeem coupon codes for themselves and/or gift them to friends and family. This gives our guests the freedom to use the value they’ve earned however they’d like, while spreading the word about Domio. From our user test groups, most users found this to be a very appealing feature to the program. 

next steps

The rewards program launched in March 2020. More data to follow.  

Expectations:

  • Increase in direct bookings

  • Repeat guest bookings

  • Increase of new guests/accounts created, encouraged by the coupon code sharing

  • New findings of how to make the next iteration more delightful 

As the MVP, we wanted to keep this product as simple and efficient as possible. As we grow, we’d like to incorporate the idea of delighting our guests with ‘perks’ in the future. With this concept, we’d like to potentially partner with local businesses near our Domio spaces to offer sweet deals to our guests after achieving a number of stays on their punch card. (For example: Guest stays 3 nights, receives an offer of free breakfast - 2 pastries and coffee at a local bakery next to their Domio.)