Melisa Kao UX
Launching a phone rental program
Platform: Website
Role: UX Manager & Researcher
Teams Involved: Product Management, Web Software, Analytics, Marketing, Customer Service, Legal
Opportunity
Gazelle offers refurbished devices for purchase but there is currently no option to rent devices at a low, monthly cost.
Objective
To offer monthly rental plans for fairly recent devices, with the ability to upgrade on regular basis. Customers can enjoy the tech they need for a low monthly cost while generating incremental recurring revenue for the business and increasing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
Checking Out the Competiton
We engaged an external design agency, Funsize, to help us with the interaction and visual design. There were two senior designers dedicated to this project and I provided oversight and guidance as the internal UX manager. Before jumping into designs, we had Funsize start with a lightweight competitive analysis.
A Quick Qualitative Study
While the Funsize designers got started on the website designs, I had concerns about the terminology that the business using. Initially, the program was referred to as a subscription and I had doubts on the clarity of the current messaging. I decided to conduct a remote user study to validate whether participants understand the concept and compared their reactions to initial designs using the terms subscribe/subscription vs. rent/rental.
Key Takeaways
As it turns out, using 'subscribe' vs. 'rent' slightly affected participants' comprehension of whether they get to keep the phone afterward. When viewing designs using the term 'subscribe,' participants were more likely to think that they would get to keep the phone after their subscription period ended, perceiving it more like a lease-to-own program. This was problematic because for our program, customers would be required to return the phone after the subscription period ends.
Would you expect to be able to keep the phone after your plan ends?
"I believe so if I'm paying a good chunk per month."
We also learned that participants had slightly different mental models for the terms 'subscription' vs. 'rental.' When asked about current subscriptions, the majority of participants cited digital services such as video or music streaming. Overall, participants tended to associate subscriptions with intangible products or services while rental was more clearly associated with physical products. Based on these findings, we were able to convince our marketing stakeholders to revisit the overall site copy and use the term 'rental' for clarity.
"Renting means that you are borrowing a physical item. Subscribing means that you are paying for a service."
User Acceptance Testing Final Designs
Once design and development was finalized, the Product Manager defined a group of cross-functional team members to conduct user acceptance testing with different focus areas. I was assigned to test the mobile website experience on an Android device. This comprehensive testing effort allowed our team to catch several critical issues before officially launching the program.
Outcome
After launching the Gazelle Flex website, we unfortunately had to pause the program after 6 months due to a significant increase in fraudulent activity. During the pause, existing renters were unaffected and the website was updated to allow customers to sign up for notifications on the restart of the program. The program has since been permanently shut down.
The business is still interested in a revisiting the concept of a rental program in the future. My biggest learning from this project was that the product concept was too minimal in implementation and not enough precautions were taken to prevent fraud.
