2022 ・PRODUCT DESIGNER ・TRAVELOKA
Building Trust, Mile by Mile
How might we provide trust and convenient through our packaging services?
2022, as the company start to transition into new-normal, and border started to ease their restriction, travel industry saw the increase on flexibility to refund & reschedule their booking.
We want to present comprehensive service packages that include not only the essentials but also additional services to optimise user’s convenience. Whether it's expedited check-in, priority boarding, extra baggage allowance, or lounge access, our bundled offerings provide a worry-free travel experience, ensuring that every aspect of the journey is seamlessly taken care of.
The company want to experiment on different bundle of service from the company and the airline. The idea is to diversify the options without overwhelming the costumer. Design was tasked to find out the product strategy and recommendations on the package desirability for the costumers.
CHALLENGES
The research I was proposing was to answer 4 key objective
Understand key factor that affect their decision to choose certain flight
Understand users perceptions of flight cancellations and users course of actions when they experience cancellations
Understand user perceptions towards comfort* and it’s relationship to insurance as additional service
To find out what’s the best way in communicating the bundle and providing value for users
PROCESS
*There’re previous research from projects that shows user perceived extra spending with additional comfort. This was shown when using upgrade their seat, purchase meal during their flight
RESEARCH METHOD
There’re several hypothesis we want to test during the research as well.
There’re factors that affected user perceptions of value of a flight, therefore making each ticket’s value dynamic.
The more uncertainties present in a traveller's trip, the more willing they are to spend additional cost of reassurance.
Safety are one of the value user find important in deciding their choice of flight, therefore the bundle should emphasize the value of safety over it’s cost
User who have experience cancellations directly would see more value in investing on an insurance compare to those who haven’t experience it.
To gather the data, I’m using Quantitative and Qualitative approach, with method as follow
Secondary Research
Expert Interview
In-depth Interview
This previous research stated how price is like a major factor in users decisions in deciding the best ticket to buy. It also stated that the low cost of airline doesn’t translate to poorer quality, unlike other products. However, looking at the data from survey, there seems to be situation where that doesn’t seem to be the case.
USER PERCEPTION ON FLIGHT VALUE
The finding show that there are strong correlations on Travel intent, Travel destinations and travel companions with the purchase of insurance of ancillaries.
The finding also validate our hypothesis in point (1) and (4). The example of relationship as followed:
The survey indicates that there are parameters that affects users consideration further, especially when companion and destinations involved (not just price). This finding emphasise hypothesis number (3) where number of people and destinations can be seen as ‘uncertainties’.
On the previous survey, we capture that flexibility service (refund and reschedule) are among top 5 of on demand service. However, it doesn’t reflected well in our sale as only 4% of active users ever purchase the insurance.
When we look at the number of people whom experience cancellations within the last 6 month (both from individual/from airline), Although it shows 24% experience cancellations, only 5% experience cancellations from Airline while the rest could be caused by personal cancellations. The sentiment we capture from in-depth also show that the urgency to purchase insurance just wasn’t there.
USER PERCEPTION ON CANCELLATIONS
During IDI we are also understand better the relationship between user planning activity and shift in behaviour due to Covid. Majority of users actually prefer to have their flight reschedule when they received cancellations from Airlines. The needs for refund are actually triggered by uncertainty of regulations on country of destinations or possibility of catching Covid during Travel Period, which can be understand as Bullwhip effect.
Here are 4 key insight from the research.
There are situations that drive users to be more risk averse amidst their perception on the risk of Travel cancellations.
The situations can be seen more prominent when affected by destinations, number of travel group, and intent (Vacations/Business)
Experience doesn’t directly correlate to purchase of insurance. The data shown that the number of users who purchased insurance aren’t those who experience cancelations
Safety value is something that was already provided by the Airline, therefore considerations when deciding to personalise user flight experience, are driven by increasing comfort within budgets
This informed us that the need might only be temporary as for majority who travel, they will find other way to ensure that they arrived at the destinations and not planning to not arriving, e.g purchasing the flight closer to the departure date compare to pre-pandemic.
It is also point to a directions where bundling Refund and Reschedule into one package could decrease package attractiveness. And that the assurance that user will arrive is more important for users.
FROM INSIGHTS TO IMPLEMENTATION
These insights means that instead of focusing on general approach the bundle:
should be dynamic/personalised based on Travel Destinations, Number of Travel Companion and Travel Intent.
Packages offered matches with requirement depending on Travel Intent, Companion and Destinations. These shapes users perception of flight risk, therefore it would be more beneficial for users.
Additionally, by targeting the users in need, the probability of the packages being purchased would be much higher compare to non targeted.
To move forward, I also propose 4 principle derived from this research, building trust isn’t just about creating a bundle that’s appealing, but ensuring that when their flight got canceled, the service are ready to tackle it.
The 4 Principle are:
Assurance
Responsiveness
Emphatic
Reliability
DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS
As a Product Designer and Co-PIC of the project, my role is to
Plan project timeline and the resource required.
Plan and execute a Genarative Research
Ensure that the product requirement match with the stakeholder’s need
Create product guiding principle and implementations strategy*
Ensure the product builds align with the design proposal
ROLE & PROCESS SUMMARY
*some of the document can’t be display due to privacy policy from the company
IMPACT
The product release it’s first MVP at the end of 2022. By the time I was resigning from the company mid 2023, I haven’t received any further data on the increase in package purchases. However, looking at the recent release, the company decide to pursue add-ons packaging, as recommended by the design team.