Forming a design partnership with Avis
We worked with Avis to improve the customer experience of the multi-platform booking journey for millions of Avis customers. We also helped embed some useful new design practices and ways-of-working.
The challenge
- Making incremental design changes across core customer journeys taken by millions of users per annum.
- Help the wider business see the power of user research to inform better design decisions.
- Planning and informing the strategic direction of the application.
Our approach
- Qualitative research to generate design ideas.
- Working side-by-side with an in-house team.
- Documenting design principles for web and app which help create a more consistent experience for Avis customers.
Avis are one of the world’s biggest automotive rental companies.
Visual design
Identifying and addressing customer pain points
Initial qualitative research assignments painted a rich picture of customer pain-points on different devices and platforms. Our focus was on the booking journey, their main commercial funnel. We love working where we can create the most commercial impact for our clients, but it means that every piece of insight and every recommendation had to be closely scrutinised. We cross-checked our findings with journey analytics.
Testing design changes
Before investing too heavily in development and back-end changes we A/B tested emerging ideas for improvements in the customer journey. This helped everyone gain confidence in the qualitative insight and gave us evidence to go ahead and make permanent changes to the user experience.
It also helped Avis’s design and development team adapt their working practices around regular user research and iterative improvements to the booking journey.
Establishing a strategic design partnership
Over time we’ve worked more and more closely with the Avis digital group. With re-platforming on the horizon, we worked with their development team to ensure the new design was brought to life accurately in a pattern library. This allowed Avis to map design changes and the knock-on effects with ease, offering them more control over their visual design identity
We deployed designers to work closely alongside the Avis team. By working side-by-side with Avis we were able to make visual design changes across more of the universal pages, which has improved the experience Avis deliver to their customers. It has also helped promote greater alignment around design.
What's next?
The success of our work has established us as Avis’s strategic partner exploring their vision for the future mobile application. This includes, design principles, design recommendations, and developing priorities for new features and functionality. Ultimately, our work has made it easier for Avis to present a joined-up experience across all customer touchpoints.
Activities
Depth interviews, design strategy, interaction design, visual design, A/B testing.
Delivery
Four months of embedded design effort alongside the Avis design and development team.
Get in touch
We'd be very happy to talk through more examples of our work.
Contact Ed Walker, Business Development Director on ed@foolproof.co.uk.
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