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Southwest Loyalty

We had five weeks to turnaround a narrative to Southwest Airlines (SWA) Branding and Loyalty executives on their current experience and share recommendations in loyalty spaces. 

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DESIGN TEAM

Lead Product Designer
2 UX Product Designers

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ROLE

Lead UX Design

Product Design

DURATION

5 Weeks

Overview

SWA tasked Visa to create a workshop around the future of loyalty. Our Innovation and Design team was invited to create an exercise that engages SWA executives around the future of loyalty. Since we just an hour to present to 12 senior executives across SWA, we determined that their enrollment journey would be a good area to focus our research and input. We presented 3 themes: Design Consistency, Enrollment, and Personalization.  

Goals

The goal was to shed light on current friction points, highlight best-in-market examples of enrollment experiences, share some wireframes and recommendations, and invite them to consider what strategy might help them achieve their goals around loyalty in the next few years. 

ENROLLMENT

DESIGN CONSISTENCY

PERSONALIZATION

Existing CX and Areas of Opportunity

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DESIGN CONSISTENCY

ENROLLMENT

PERSONALIZATION

Competitive Analysis

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Proposed CX Experience & Wireframes

I conducted an audit of the current customer experience and a competitive analysis, and decided to concentrate on 3 themes:

  • Design Consistency

  • Enrollment

  • Personalization

I also provided feedback and guidance on the existing customer experience, and I created wireframes to provide recommendations on the future state CX experience.

Design Consistency 

Existing CX Experience

  • There were inconsistent design language across platforms.

  • Difficult to discover the Rapid Rewards program.

  • Steep learning curve

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Proposed CX Experience

  • Apply consistent design language across platforms

  • Encourage first visit users to join Rapid Rewards sign up process

  • Provide high level explanation of Rapid Rewards program

  • Clearly state value and how to easily engage in SWA experience

Rapid Rewards

introduction for first time users

Login

for return users

Rapid Rewards

onboarding tutorial

Rapid Rewards

description

Simplified Enrollment

Existing CX Experience

  • Traditional format of detailed account information not efficient

  • The design elements give impression of a longer process

  • Long forms in are intimidating and lead to incomplete enrollment 

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Proposed CX Experience

  • Streamline sign up process by reducing friction of additional input

  • Offer an immediate reward, and encourage users to add information

  • Option to fill additional information, or later when purchasing first flight

  • Provide a personalized and delightful moment of welcome 

Offer after enrollment

Complete registration

Member confirmation

Simplified Rapid Rewards

enrollment

Personalization

Existing CX Experience

  • Personalization opportunities are missing throughout the experience

  • Repeating the customer name conversationally increases engagement

Proposed CX Experience

  • Add option to personalize experience for future messaging and offers

  • Encourage participation by offering a free reward and add delight

  • Add option to join the Southwest Community

  • Opportunity to capture more engagement, enhancing the brand

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Personalized offers

Personalize experience

Rapid Reward partners

Personalize experience

destinations

Personalize experience

type of travel

Join The Community

Personalization: Future State

Proposed Future CX Experience

Homepage

  • Add personalized offers and recommendations based on profile

 

Profile Page

  • Add personalized touchpoints for users to customize their profile

  • Option for personalized travel preferences

Southwest Community​

  • Create a Southwest Community to build on the unique brand personality

  • Potential to increase engagement and loyalty, and increase user base

  • Opportunity for gamification, viral moments, and engagement with users

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Southwest Community

Personalized

travel preferences

Personalized touchpoints

profile page

Personalized homepage

Notifications for

recommendations

Challenges, Learnings & Takeaways

CHALLENGES

  • Timing & Abiguity

    The project was ambiguous at the start and was open on where exactly to focus. The time for creating an experience to hone in and develop these concepts was down to a week.

  • Design Decisions 

    Sometimes after advocating for the users, a decision is made on a design direction that I may not 100% agree with, as it may consider multiple approvals from multiple stakeholders to arrive at the decision.

  • Direction Pivots

    Quick turnarounds, direction pivots, multiple changes, can lead to confusion and loss of time.

LEARNINGS & REFLECTIONS

  • Timing & Ownership

    With the time I had I just jumped in and took ownership of the concepts and developed the wireframes in 2 days, helping to aleive the ambiguity. I helped mentor a junior UX designer designer to help work through the concepts.

  • Committing to Decisions 

    After advocating for best user experience, I commit fully to the decision made and move forward in a positive and cohesive direction with the team.

  • Direction Pivots & Flexibility

    Flexibility and clear communication can help to align the teams and focus and accomplish main goals.

Impact & Outcome

We created a lively environment for discussion and idea generation with Southwest Airlines. The concepts and wireframes I created, and what we presented launched deep conversations over their current experience, their plans to update their UI with our recommendations, and considerations over what they could be doing differently now. Feedback from SWA has been resoundingly positive and has enabled future engagements.

BEHIND THE SCENES

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