Research Strategy Case Study: Post-Reservation Issues
Challenge
When a consumer moves into a storage unit that they booked on SpareFoot’s online storage marketplace, the corresponding facility pays SpareFoot for the new customer. This is a primary driver of revenue for SpareFoot. However, more and more customers over time were abandoning their reservations and move-in rate was steadily declining. At the time, only 42% of customers that booked reservations with SpareFoot actually moved in.
The organization hypothesized that this was because consumers were a) having a bad experience when they arrived at the facility or b) being targeted by competitor’s paid media after the consumer had booked, causing them to rebook elsewhere and abandon their SpareFoot reservation.
This was in part true, but qualitative research shed more light on the issue to define actionable solutions.
Process
My review of consumer feedback channels month-to-month was the first step in adding definition to this issue. When asked through open text email follow ups why they did not move in to their unit, consumers stated the following reasons for abandoning their reservations:
Their move in date had changed and they weren’t able to update it on our site
Their priorities for distance or price had changed, and they booked elsewhere
They had an issue at the facility when they had tried to move in
The unit was unavailable or not as promised
The price they had booked the unit for was not honored
Because SpareFoot is a marketplace with a variety of storage unit options and prices, all of these issues could have been potentially fixed if they had contacted customer service. SpareFoot had a fantastic customer support call center, but customers didn’t seem to be aware of it. Only 5% of calls to the call center were a consumer that needed help with an existing reservation.
Though shocking to internal employees, reviewing the site and post-reservation communications clearly showed that SpareFoot did not publicize our customer support capabilities or how to contact customer support. This hurt move-in and our brand image. When consumers are moving into a storage unit, they are typically juggling many other life events at the same time. We were causing a stressful situation to be even more stressful because they could not find a home for their stuff due to lack of support.
This was driven home to stakeholders during internal consumer journey workshops. Stakeholders voiced that seeing the journey made them realize that we focused very hard on getting consumers to reserve on the site, and then did very little to support their actual move-in.
It was clear from customer feedback and journey mapping that consumers did not consider their journey with SpareFoot over until they moved in, yet the marketplace was not supporting successful completion.
I had been publishing these issues in the monthly newsletter and presenting them at the monthly company meeting. Though the product group agreed that I was finding some issues that had to be addressed, because we had limited resources, I needed to provide scale to the issues before they could prioritize fixes.
I worked with email marketing to launch a post-move in survey for customers who had not moved in. After we received 2,000+ responses, we had numbers.
43.7% had difficulty changing their move-in date
32% had a change in priorities and had not reached out to see if we could rebook to meet their needs
11.7% had an issue with the facility when they arrived to move in
Only 4.3% no longer needed storage. This told us that there were a lot of opportunities to save these reservations, but because people were not aware of the value or the customer support we offered, they did not contact us.
Product and I agreed that the onsite reservation funnel and post-reservation communications had to have stronger messaging about our value and available customer support. A colleague and I sketched a concept to display pieces of information that I had seen consumers needed, and she completed a high-fidelity mockup.
We decided to test the concept in an exploratory qualitative study with 12 participants. I collaborated on a test plan with OneSpark, a research firm, who then went on to facilitate the session. I invited the product group to watch sessions remotely so they could benefit from the sessions.
In addition to testing the post-reservation communication concept, we wanted to find out customer preferences for communication channels (e.g. email, sms, etc) and reactions to our competitors’ and indirect competitors’ email communications to expose additional opportunities.
We found that:
Designing for stressful situations was key
Our consumers would be driving truckloads of items to take into storage on their weekend. They would be busy, stressed, and ready to get it over with. If something went wrong, it was critical that they knew that they could contact us to fix the situation
Therefore, consumer support messaging needed to appear in outlined parts of the funnel, as well as prioritized in hierarchy of the confirmation and reservation reminder email.
Storage consumers had a preference for email
It had details all in one place and was easy to find later
SMS was seen as a secondary complement to email
There were positive reactions to our email design concept
Participants appreciated the flow, clear section headers, and prioritized content
We also had direction on:
Expectations around content in the storage confirmation email
Perception of different pieces of content in the post-reservation communication flow
Outcome
Improved post-reservation communication designs are rolling out and will be continuously iterated upon to drive more improvements. Additionally, they will be tested through the benchmarking framework. SMS communication has also been implemented. We’ll track engagement with customer support for post-reservations issues and monitor how that affects MIR.
The survey that goes to customers that did not move in will continue to run and provide scale to issues. Along with the KPI of move-in rate, the survey will reflect the impact that these post-reservation communication efforts have.