AgodaVIP is Agoda’s loyalty program seeking high engagement with loyal customers different from non-VIP customers. There are 3.3M of AgodaVIP users, and they contribute 35% of total bookings on Agoda.com.
I was in charge of designing the AgodaVIP experience for 1.5 years from the first product launch.
Skill & Responsibility
Web & Mobile Design ・ Data-driven validation
Project timeline
Feb 2019 - Jun 2020
Company
Agoda
Team
1 Product Designer ・ 4 Developers ・ 1 PM ・ 1 Business
We recognized the business needs for a loyalty program after a survey. The research team surveyed 1,500 lost users in Feb 2019: What makes users loyal to other OTA(Online Travel Agency)s than Agoda?
Agoda has been good at delivering a price value for one instant experience. But the survey says it doesn't guarantee users to revisit or loyal to Agoda.com. We needed to build a long-term relationship with our users.
The most challenging part on the design side is how to deliver holistic design solutions while allowing experimental-based business growth. Loyalty design shouldn't feel like to be for one instant experience, yet, it should be able to validate one by one if it works for Agoda.
So, I decided to provide a design solution that breaks into multiple incremental business phases.
I defined three phases of design goals that reflect the business plan. To deeply understand the loyalty business, I drove internal team interviews with product managers, marketing, sales, and customer support.
For the first phase, in the business aspect, proving the potential impact from the AgodaVIP product was the main goal before officially launching an all-ready loyalty program.
The design approach inlined with it: Utilize what we have but phrased special for VIP.
Even though there wasn't 'more' discount for VIP users than non-VIP users, this very first VIP product experiment had a significant impact on the business. This full-funnel VIP messaging test contributed to increasing net booking by 1.03% and net margin by 1.56%.
To finalize the product's visual identity, we had multiple tests for the different logo options as well.
Expansion on visual identity
The new requirement, the tiering system, there should be a clear visual indicator for the levels. I worked on multiple visual explorations and took this opportunity as an improvement on the overall product visual style.
Among the exploration, I compared each option’s scalability if there are ‘more’ tiers than two.
Communication with the internal and external team
Other internal teams at Agoda and Agoda’s external partners also needed to use AgodaVIP messages. While the strategic partnership was happening, I created AgodaVIP design guidelines for internal and external partners to ensure our brand and the intention are consistent.
Phase 3 was the most exciting one as a designer. I suggested multiple design-driven improvements, small and big ones. I set the design hypothesis based on one of the findings: AgodaVIP users seek exclusive treatment.
VIP membership page by incremental steps
Loading screen for VIP users
Less marketing ads for VIP users
Impact on business
We prove that designing the end-to-end horizontal experience works well.
At the first month of launch, the holistic solution for AgodaVIP design contributed to the net bookings increasing by 1.5%. After all, we continuously improved the product while aiming for a 3.9% increasing in net booking in the next four months.
Impact on other designers
I joined as a speaker for the monthly design all-hands meeting at Agoda.
I advocated the designers to 1) design without limiting yourself within the given scope 2) own your design solution and be bold for pushing forward.
At that time, at Agoda, designing a successful horizontal experience wasn't familiar for all. The team recognized my design contributions as a great takeaway.
