Role
UX Designer
Timeline
Fall 2021, 12 weeks
Skills
UX Design, Interface Design, User Research, Competitive Analysis
Tools
Figma, Google Surveys
Problem to Solve
Customers aren't staying loyal to the IHG brand.
1. IHG needs its customers to book directly through their site to maximize revenue. Customers will book where they are most incentivized to go. Loyalty programs and gamification offer great motivation to be a returning customer.
2. IHG needs to retain its customers. Customers will purchase hotels based on need, price, and location. Loyalty programs can provide discounts and priority over non-member customers.
So how do we fix that?
Audit of Current Website
The IHG website does not easily allow for the use, redemption, and earning of loyalty points.
The previous site is incredibly difficult for users to interpret and the ideal path is not well defined. The text hierarchies are unclear, the site lacks design consistency, and has lots of distractions. We noticed many areas for improvement in both the overall design of the site and in the features it uses.
Interviewing IHG Employees
Each hotel is connected together by the website and only the website.
Multiple employees discussed the limits and challenges when designing and implementing IHG’s current loyalty program. Because IHG’s 16+ brands and even their individual hotels operate as separate businesses, creating a loyalty solution that worked for all of them was nearly impossible. Booking on the IHG website is the only part of the process they control, which is why many of the current loyalty touch points occur during booking.
"The hotels operate as individual businesses with their own owners, so if we want to change something for the entire company, like telling them to accept loyalty points in a new way, we have to get every single owner to agree to comply."
-Alison, IHG employee
Target Audience Survey
Customers favor loyalty programs but many feel rewards are unattainable.
Next, we dove into the customer base to understand travel habits, how people felt about hotel loyalty, and major pain points within the hotel industry. To do so, we conducted a survey of almost 300 people.
Demographics
User Quotes
"I know their loyalty program is supposed to help me save money, but I don't travel 20 times a year. It feels like I will never earn free nights and it's so frustrating to use the same brand to get these discounts and then never actually get rewarded."
-Caroline, 32
"I pick my hotel based on price, availability, and location, but the places I check first are based on the brand. I am a Hilton rewards member so if I'm traveling, I always check their hotels first and look for their best deal to earn my points and hopefully redeem my points for a cheaper price."
-Thomas, 44
Survey Results
46% do not think they travel enough to reap the benefits of a hotel loyalty program
40% ranked hotel loyalty in their Top 3 Priorities when booking a trip
52% said the ability to save money through loyalty strongly impacts their final booking decision
COMPETITIVE & COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Visualizing IHG's competitors' and highly regarded loyalty programs' strengths and weaknesses.
Competitive Analysis
The competitive analysis reviewed top competitors Marriott, Hilton, and AirBNB. Hyatt was notably excluded because they did not offer a comparable service at the time of this study. IHG was lacking in areas such as brand awareness, indispensability, and experience management.
Comparative Analysis
The comparative analysis looked at brands with loyalty programs or booking processes. By looking across industries including restaurants, airlines, and theme parks, we identified loyalty tactics including gamification and dollar value transparency that could be helpful in the hotel industry.
Gamification
Many successful loyalty programs use game mechanics as surprisingly effective and fun motivators.
Gamification is the use of game mechanics, elements, and designs in a non-game context to encourage users to complete tasks that are not game related. Game mechanics can include: badges, points, levels, prizes, bonuses, rewards, leader boards, customization, and progress graphs.
Gamification can have many forms in UX Design, but generally, it is the use of game mechanics in design to engage users in a satisfying, efficient, intuitive, and memorable experience. It incentivizes customers to enjoy product experiences repeatedly, increasing customer retention and customer spend.
Key Insights
Customers feel it takes far too long to earn rewards.
Acquiring points takes too long and the rewards feel unattainable for average travelers. Most users are not staying 10 nights a year in a hotel, which is the minimum needed to earn a free night's stay. There is no point trading for smaller discounts or upgrades either. The IHG employee interviews revealed that each hotel is separately managed so spending points on smaller things would be nearly impossible to implement with management pushback, but earning points in new ways could provide a solution.
Solution Criteria
Build a better loyalty ecosystem for earning points faster.
Make earning points easier.
Make point earning more achievable and engaging so guests prioritize hotel loyalty and do not feel discouraged by unachievable expectations.
Increase loyalty touch points.
Encourage more frequent use of loyalty by increasing loyalty touch points throughout the user’s journey. Making loyalty indispensable throughout the customer journey will promote the rewards program and help users understand how to earn points.
Build trust.
Make loyalty a top priority by showing guests the full value of loyalty points and the best way to use them to the benefit of the customer. Make rewards feel attainable and worth their time. We want out customers to feel appreciated for their business.
LOYALTY PROGRAM IMPROVEMENTS
Creating new loyalty capabilities.
Quick Challenges
The first new capability is quick challenges. These are one-and-done tasks for users to complete and instantly earn points. This is a great way to encourage users to engage with the IHG website directly, allows them to earn points in more ways than just booking stays, and promotes different parts of the IHG brand.
Milestone Challenges
The second new capability builds off of the quick challenges. Milestone challenges are multi-step tasks for users to complete. This encourages users to stay more and spend more with the promise of extra rewards points at the end.
Design Improvements
Improving current loyalty features.
Membership Tiers
Loyalty members can earn elevated experiences through loyalty tiers by points earned and nights stayed. It is not currently displayed in an easily consumable way, so the goal is to cut down on the user's cognitive load when understanding their current loyalty tier and how to reach the next one.
Available Points
Lifetime points reflected in tier statuses may differ from points available for redemption if the user has already redeemed some or all of their points for rewards. This difference needs to be displayed without causing confusion about the different numbers displayed. It should also promote ways to earn points and not just point spending, as redeeming points happens far less often than earning points does.
Final Solution
New earning page for point challenges and an updated loyalty homepage with extra opportunities to earn points.
We redesigned and rebranded the entire site to align with IHG's new brand standards, adding new functionalities along the way. While still keeping to business requirements such as promoting the IHG credit card and having a host of marketing content, we were able to better align the website with customer needs. A clear typography hierarchy was established along with a system of reusable components in Figma for a more unified, consistent design. We notably introduced an entirely new page exclusively about earning points.
Desktop
Mobile Web
Prototyping
Using components in Figma to create a fully functioning prototype.
As previously mentioned, we utilized Figma as the primary tool for this project. We were able to take full advantage of Figma's components to create reusable components for the entire site.
Building Components & Prototyping
Desktop Prototyping
Bye For Now 👋🏼
Thanks for taking a look!
Still have questions? Contact me at briamckouen@gmail.com
