How smarter emails cut vehicle booking cancellations
How smarter emails cut vehicle booking cancellations
How smarter emails cut vehicle booking cancellations
Late 2022, SIXT was facing a key organizational challenge.
A high rate of vehicle booking cancellations at major airports.
Customers frequently cancelled their bookings upon arrival at the SIXT counters due to missing essential documents & unmet expectations.
Late 2022, SIXT was facing a key organizational challenge.
A high rate of vehicle booking cancellations at major airports.
Customers frequently cancelled their bookings upon arrival at the SIXT counters due to missing essential documents & unmet expectations.
Late 2022, SIXT was facing a key organizational challenge.
A high rate of vehicle booking cancellations at major airports.
Customers frequently cancelled their bookings upon arrival at the SIXT counters due to missing essential documents & unmet expectations.
Year
2022
Organization
SIXT
Role
Sr. Executive UX Design
Sr. Executive UX Design
Product Duration
12 Weeks
Why Were Customers Cancelling Their Bookings?
Why Were Customers Cancelling Their Bookings?
Why Were Customers Cancelling Their Bookings?
Our UX research team conducted qualitative research across 2 airports - Munich & Amsterdam. After observing 250 customers at the SIXT counters and video recording 60 of them (with consent). 18 out of 250 customers cancelled their bookings at the counters.
We identified the following issues contributing to the booking cancellations.
International customers were unaware of mandatory document requirements, such as international driver’s licenses. This was more a prominent mishap with tourists from Asian and Middle Eastern countries.
Essential details were buried within lengthy emails, leading to critical information being overlooked. i.e. In order to pick-up the booked vehicle at the counter, the customers needed to use the very same credit card that was used to rent the vehicle online.
The timing of reminder emails did not align with user expectations and travel behaviors.
objectives
objectives
objectives
A large part of the cancellation problem stemmed from SIXT failing to communicate details regarding the pick-up process with their customers.
A discussion with C-level led us to prioritize on fixing transactional emails to help solve the following:
Primary objective: Reducing vehicle booking cancellations at airports.
Secondary objective: Reducing the number of inbound calls to SIXT Agents at the airport counters.
What went wrong with communications within the booking experience?
What went wrong with communications within the booking experience?
What went wrong with communications within the booking experience?
Cognitive overload:
Customers were receiving way too much unstructured information from each email sent after their booking, which made it easy to miss out on important details.
Negative surprises:
New customers had no idea about the pre-arrival email which provided further information on the required documents and expectations for vehicle pick-up, while returning customers often got confused or frustrated with the irregular timing of the pre-arrival email.
Images below illustrate the old Confirmation & Pre-arrival emails and their schedules from the booking journey.
Cognitive overload:
Customers were receiving way too much unstructured information from each email sent after their booking, which made it easy to miss out on important details.
Negative surprises:
New customers had no idea about the pre-arrival email which provided further information on the required documents and expectations for vehicle pick-up, while returning customers often got confused or frustrated with the irregular timing of the pre-arrival email.
Cognitive overload:
Customers were receiving way too much unstructured information from each email sent after their booking, which made it easy to miss out on important details.
Negative surprises:
New customers had no idea about the pre-arrival email which provided further information on the required documents and expectations for vehicle pick-up, while returning customers often got confused or frustrated with the irregular timing of the pre-arrival email.
How Did We improve the experience?
How Did We improve the experience?
How Did We improve the experience?
Insight gathering
We used Litmus to track email engagement insights from both the old and the new booking journeys.
We also tracked conversion for Mobile-checkin CTA, where customers could sign up for a faster vehicle pickup experience.
Content & Structure Optimization
We simplified messaging to highlight key actions with a clearer visual hierarchy.
Also focused on readability by using bold headers, contrasting colors and spacing to emphasize critical information.
Refined Email Sequence and Timing
Adjusted email delivery times to align better with user behavior and expectations.
The pre-arrival email was now renamed into 'What to bring' email and was sent immediately after the confirmation email, while a reminder email was sent only when customers made a booking 2 days before pick-up.
The mobile check-in email was now sent exactly 2 hours before pickup, allowing users to choose their vehicle in advance, addressing a key pain point.
a system for scale
We worked on defining principles for building better emails. This helped us scale our success from the booking experience into others, while maintaining consistency and effective language for our customers.
Images below illustrate the new Confirmation, What to bring & Reminder emails and their schedules from the improved booking journey. Below, you will also find our principles for building emails.
Insight gathering
We used Litmus to track email engagement insights from both the old and the new booking journeys.
We also tracked conversion for Mobile-checkin CTA, where customers could sign up for a faster vehicle pickup experience.
Content & Structure Optimization
We simplified messaging to highlight key actions with a clearer visual hierarchy.
Also focused on readability by using bold headers, contrasting colors and spacing to emphasize critical information.
Refined Email Sequence and Timing
Adjusted email delivery times to align better with user behavior and expectations.
The pre-arrival email was now renamed into 'What to bring' email and was sent immediately after the confirmation email, while a reminder email was sent only when customers made a booking 2 days before pick-up.
The mobile check-in email was now sent exactly 2 hours before pickup, allowing users to choose their vehicle in advance, addressing a key pain point.
a system for scale
We worked on defining principles for building better emails. This helped us scale our success from the booking experience into others, while maintaining consistency and effective language for our customers.
Insight gathering
We used Litmus to track email engagement insights from both the old and the new booking journeys.
We also tracked conversion for Mobile-checkin CTA, where customers could sign up for a faster vehicle pickup experience.
Content & Structure Optimization
We simplified messaging to highlight key actions with a clearer visual hierarchy.
Also focused on readability by using bold headers, contrasting colors and spacing to emphasize critical information.
Refined Email Sequence and Timing
Adjusted email delivery times to align better with user behavior and expectations.
The pre-arrival email was now renamed into 'What to bring' email and was sent immediately after the confirmation email, while a reminder email was sent only when customers made a booking 2 days before pick-up.
The mobile check-in email was now sent exactly 2 hours before pickup, allowing users to choose their vehicle in advance, addressing a key pain point.
a system for scale
We worked on defining principles for building better emails. This helped us scale our success from the booking experience into others, while maintaining consistency and effective language for our customers.
What did we achieve?
What did we achieve?
What did we achieve?
After implementing the redesigned communication journey for the vehicle booking experience, we launched a controlled test for a sample size of 850 customers arriving at Munich and Amsterdam airports.
The results were observed for a month and here are the details:
Booking Cancellations
Old journey: 17% cancellation rate (avg. of month of Feb 2020 - 2022)
New journey: 11% cancellation rate (month of Feb 2023)
Email Engagement
Open rates:
Confirmation & What to bring emails: 65% (no change)
Mobile check-in email: Increased from 65% to 70% (after subject-line experiments)
Click-through rates (CTR):
Confirmation email CTR increased from 11% to 16%
Mobile check-in email CTR increased from 21% to 24%
Business impact
Avg. monthly rentals at Munich & Amsterdam airports (Feb) = 10,500 & 11,000 respectively.
21,500 rentals in total across both airports.
Avg. rental cost at both airports = 280 Euro
17% of rentals cancelled = 3655 rentals
Loss from rentals cancelled = 3655 * 280 = 1,023,400 Euro
11% of rentals cancelled = 2365 rentals
Loss from rentals cancelled = 2365 * 280 = 662,200 Euro
Fixing the email journey of just the booking experience has made a difference of 361,200 Euro in revenue retention.
Images below illustrate the different iterations for the Confirmation email, and myself collaborating with UserZoom (now acquired by UserTesting) to test our hypothesis in the US market early 2023.
After implementing the redesigned communication journey for the vehicle booking experience, we launched a controlled test for a sample size of 850 customers arriving at Munich and Amsterdam airports.
The results were observed for a month and here are the details:
Booking Cancellations
Old journey: 17% cancellation rate (avg. of month of Feb 2020 - 2022)
New journey: 11% cancellation rate (month of Feb 2023)
Email Engagement
Open rates:
Confirmation & What to bring emails: 65% (no change)
Mobile check-in email: Increased from 65% to 70% (after subject-line experiments)
Click-through rates (CTR):
Confirmation email CTR increased from 11% to 16%
Mobile check-in email CTR increased from 21% to 24%
Business impact
Avg. monthly rentals at Munich & Amsterdam airports (Feb) = 10,500 & 11,000 respectively.
21,500 rentals in total across both airports.
Avg. rental cost at both airports = 280 Euro
17% of rentals cancelled = 3655 rentals
Loss from rentals cancelled = 3655 * 280 = 1,023,400 Euro
11% of rentals cancelled = 2365 rentals
Loss from rentals cancelled = 2365 * 280 = 662,200 Euro
Fixing the email journey of just the booking experience has made a difference of 361,200 Euro.
After implementing the redesigned communication journey for the vehicle booking experience, we launched a controlled test for a sample size of 850 customers arriving at Munich and Amsterdam airports.
The results were observed for a month and here are the details:
Booking Cancellations
Old journey: 17% cancellation rate (avg. of month of Feb 2020 - 2022)
New journey: 11% cancellation rate (month of Feb 2023)
Email Engagement
Open rates:
Confirmation & What to bring emails: 65% (no change)
Mobile check-in email: Increased from 65% to 70% (after subject-line experiments)
Click-through rates (CTR):
Confirmation email CTR increased from 11% to 16%
Mobile check-in email CTR increased from 21% to 24%
Business impact
Avg. monthly rentals at Munich & Amsterdam airports (Feb) = 10,500 & 11,000 respectively.
21,500 rentals in total across both airports.
Avg. rental cost at both airports = 280 Euro
17% of rentals cancelled = 3655 rentals
Loss from rentals cancelled = 3655 * 280 = 1,023,400 Euro
11% of rentals cancelled = 2365 rentals
Loss from rentals cancelled = 2365 * 280 = 662,200 Euro
Fixing the email journey of just the booking experience has made a difference of 361,200 Euro.
SO, why emails?
SO, why emails?
SO, why emails?
I have solved complex enterprise problems for brands like Microsoft, Airbus and Interzero. However, with this case study, I wish to show and prove that your brand, revenue and costs can all be improved by fixing something most experts will overlook.