It pays to be loyal

The problem

Customers believe that they don't have incentive for being regular users of our app. We need to show current Gold status customers (most loyalty points) that it's worth staying loyal and, on the other hand, motivate non-Gold customers that there is merit in regularly using us for all their transport and delivery needs.

From a business perspective, it's been observed that customers who use the app more than 8 times a month are 85% more likely to stay devoted users, so an increased trip-per-user would be greatly beneficial. Another finding is that 28% of Gold users don't use our ride-hailing service, this would thus be a good cross-selling opportunity as well.

The solution

The goal was to show users that it pays to be Gold and to show those who have not reached Gold status yet, that it's worth it. We would do this by showing them that, when you're Gold, you don't need to pay any fees when you cancel your requested ride. Meaning more freedom and less anxiety about cancelling a ride and finding another one or simply just cancelling when you've changed your mind.

We initially had some limitations. Changing the flow was not in the scope for this project so we could only add to existing screens and tweak the design a little bit.

The product manager wanted to reach both existing and future Gold members in one go. Luckily, we managed to persuade him to split these two, very distinct, messages. Combining the two messages would be very copy-heavy (less likely to be read completely), overwhelming to the user, what we're trying to convey would become unclear and, to be frank, it just wouldn't look aesthetically pleasing.

We faced another technicality - we didn't have the capability to completely waive cancellation fees for our loyal customers. We can only refund the amount as credit into Careem Pay wallet, our own payment platform.

So we also had to make it clear that it was a refund (not "free") and that is was Careem credit (not money).

The process

Since we couldn't reinvent the wheel on this one, we had a look at the legacy flow to see how we could incorporate our new messages into the existing flow without disturbing it too much.

First version (first round of design proposals, pre-copy)

Below on the left, is the existing/regular cancellation confirmation message, next to it is the screen with the additional Gold benefit message added (for Gold status) and then the same, for non-Gold status. This is what it would've looked like if we were to use the same copy for both the messages we want to convey.

Firstly, the spelling of "cancelation" does not follow our style guidelines, it should be "cancelled" (UK). The gold message is unclear - it looks like even non-Gold members don't have to pay cancellation fees, especially when assuming that only the title would be read. Additionally, "No cancellation fees" is deceiving since we're still going to deduct the amount from your account. (And refund it later.)

Iteration 1

Updated the copy here and the designer and I played around with another layout for the screen (far right).

At this stage I didn't yet realise the problem associated with claiming that the fees were "free" and this is why it's still used on the non-Gold member screen on the left. The idea with the body copy here was to give the user a solution - they're not Gold, so what can they do? I redirected them to our FAQs page. But later on, thinking about it, would a user who is about to cancel a ride want to leave the screen to go read our FAQs? Probably not, this didn't really work either.

The Gold member screen, in the middle, has the more accurate copy of "refund" and "credit". It also decreases the contact rate since we're answering the question regarding when the user would receive this refund. It would typically be much faster but it's safer to cover all our bases in case something unexpected goes wrong.

On the right is an alternative design with complementary copy.

Iteration 2

We had a feedback session (PMs, designer, developers etc) and decided to go with the cleaner alternative design that we played around with in the first iteration.

Made sure that there was no misunderstandings here, no mention of "free" cancellations.

The non-Gold member message, on the left, explains what the user needs to do without having to take them to a separate FAQs page. Less clicks, less frustration. The user isn't interrupted from the task he or she is busy with.

Another improvement in this iteration is that the message is customised to the specific user - on the left, we tell you exactly how many rides/orders you have to make to reach Gold. For Gold members, we emphasise the exact amount of credit that will be paid back to their Careem Pay wallet.

Having the messages in contrasting colours is an addition that will make it easy for a user to see when he/she has finally reached Gold and, hopefully, create a bit of satisfaction.

Iteration 3

After another review some team members, second-language English speakers, mentioned that they often get confused about the meaning of "credited", does it mean something is added or deducted? Slightly changed the sentence structure and opted for "refund" instead of "credited".