For Guests
Personalizing User Onboarding Experience
Background
Localbird is a digital concierge service for vacation rental hosts. By using this service, hosts can offer curated authentic experiences to their guests.
Challenge
Experience bookings remain low due to the service lacking personalization for guests' needs and preferences.
Solution
A chatbot interaction was integrated into the onboarding process to deliver a personalized experience and create a concierge-like conversation.
Competitive Analysis
A comparison of digital concierge services and experience booking platforms was conducted, evaluating ease of use and personalization.
The goal was to make the Localbird platform both user-friendly and tailored to individual guest needs.
Research
Online research was conducted to explore user behavior during vacation experiences bookings and online interactions.
Key Insights
Over 70% of travelers struggle to find authentic online experiences that match their interests.
58% of travelers report feeling overwhelmed by too many choices.
Sites that utilize chatbots achieve conversion rates 2 to 5 times higher than those without.
User Flow
Two questions were integrated into an onboarding chatbot to create a more personal, human-centered experience and deliver tailored recommendations for easier decision-making.
Additionally, a pick-up shuttle is offered, addressing a common guest need and strengthening trust between the guest, the service, and the host.
Old Flow
New Flow
Design
Low-fidelity wireframes were developed to validate the structure before progressing to high-fidelity designs.
Different suggestions modes were created to give the user opportunity to explore experiences with sense of control while minimizing the number of choices suggested.
A five-experiences carousel per interest was used to reduce scrolling and avoid overwhelming users with too many suggestions.
Pill buttons were designed as filters based on users' answers, allowing them to refine suggestions and maintain control even after the initial conversation.
Labels and FOMO tags were added to each experience to guide users and create a sense of urgency, motivating them to take action.
User Testing
A/B testing was conducted to identify the most effective conversation channel for the main CTA.
In-site chat was preferred, as users are often hesitant to share their phone number with a service they don’t fully trust yet, but are more willing once trust is established.
Option A
Site chat as primary CTA
Option B
Whatsapp chat as primary CTA
Impact
Increase in experience bookings.
Increase in user growth.
Increase in amount of users making more than one purchase.
