EXPEDIA.COM
Tripcare
Expedia allows travelers to purchase insurance along with their bookings on the site. The insurance is managed by Expedia's insurance partner. Though Expedia is not directly involved in the insurance processes, it is a part of the travelers' itinerary. Insurance-related information was difficult to access and comprehend. This project was done to enhance travelers' post-purchase insurance experience.
Team & Role
I collaborated with 3 UX Designers, 1 PM, 1 Content Strategist, and an Engineering Team. My role included:
PWA Design
UX
UI
Tools
Figma, Jira, Trello
Timeline
2 months
Context
Travelers can purchase insurance for their trip/part of their trip on Expedia. On their travel itinerary, very basic information about their purchased insurance was shown, which worked just like a product identifier. In certain cases, a link to cancel and/or file a claim (as per policy) was also provided. All the information and actions related to insurance remained on the insurance partner’s site.
Post-purchase insurance experience
ITINERARY
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INSURANCE MODULE ON ITINERARY
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
Problems with the existing experience
Users’ perspective
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Coverage details are sparse
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Detailed supporting content is written in legalese
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Purchasers don’t understand:
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What’s covered, not covered by insurance benefits, which drives dissatisfaction (especially when claims are denied)
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What actions they may need to take in the destination or what documents are needed to file a successful claim
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When coverage is active
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Self-service cancellation isn’t available for all insurance products
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How to file a claim or check claim status
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Filing claims is confusing and time-consuming
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Who to contact/ where to find relevant information in case of a concern
Business perspective
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In case users are not able to exercise/claim insurance, they don’t see value in buying insurance. This, in turn, reduces the probability of a repeat purchase
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The steps to claim insurance are not clear, users end up going through multiple phone calls to file a claim. Also, since the customer support contacts are not clearly listed, it leads to increased calls to Expedia
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It is not communicated well to the users that Expedia doesn’t participate in the insurance processes, which may put Expedia’s brand value at stake
Goal
Insurance-related information should be easy to access and interpret. The primary goal is to improve insurance's perceived value and users' happiness.
Metrics
The success metrics we would be looking at are:
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Repeat rate
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NPS
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Engagement
The scope
Post-purchase insurance support is a part of the post-purchase trips system. We are looking at integrating it with the new trips system (in development during this work). This includes providing insurance-related information such as coverage duration and details, documents required, how to access the required information. Some major actions/processes such as filing a claim, checking the claim status may still be on the insurer’s site, and are not included in the scope of this work.
User expectations from purchased insurance
The insurance claim is definitely one big value users associate with insurance, but a very small fraction of users actually need to file a claim. We wanted to understand in detail what are the user expectations from their travel insurance other than filing a claim. For that we looked at:
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Customer feedback
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Customer support call center reports
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NPS score study from our insurance partners
We also conducted research (done in collaboration with a dedicated researcher) to understand the value users seek in insurance without filing a claim.
Goal:
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Understand what travelers expect from their travel insurance
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Focus on important aspects without filing a claim
Research method:
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1:1 user interviews, with 10 participants
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Participants included travelers who have travel insurance or purchased it for their last trip, who travel often and book through OTAs
Key findings:
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Travelers want to have access to their insurance all the time, across devices
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Travelers want to know the process and want to be aware of what is expected when it comes to claims
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Travelers find value in information related to their insurance as and when required in their trip
What we are solving first
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Designs for mobile and desktop
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Provide more robust content around what’s covered/not covered
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Expectation setting for the claim process: what to know when traveling, what documents to keep track of
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Help travelers better understand the status of their coverage and, if applicable, claims
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Access to assistance
Our Proposal
The new post-purchase trips+insurance system
Existing
New
Where we landed - the new insurance module
BENEFIT OVERVIEW
Know what you are covered for
There can be multiple benefits under each insurance plan purchased by the traveler. The Benefit overview page lists all those in the order of coverage period (before trip starts>during trip>canceled) so that the travelers know what they are covered for and for which duration.
BENEFIT DETAIL
Specifics you may need
Each benefit under an insurance plan covers a set of specific events. This section keeps the user well informed of every situation they are covered for, when and how they can file a claim if required, contact support when stuck, or cancel the plan if no longer needed. This is to provide enhanced transparency, control, and support to the users.
FILE A CLAIM
Need to file a claim?
Filing a claim can be a tedious and time-consuming process. It becomes even more challenging when the users have no idea what all documents they may require to successfully submit a claim and are taken by surprise during the process, delaying it even further. We list everything that the users need to know before filing a claim so that they feel more confident and have access to assistance when in doubt.
Impact
After launch statistics
The new insurance system was launched in Oct 2020, only for Flights and Flights + Hotel packages, starting with only two points of sales, Australia and New Zealand (as we got approvals for these two POS from our insurance partners, for now, other POS to follow soon).
Though the number of bookings decreased, engagement on the new insurance module increased from 3% in Oct to 36% in Mar. There has also been an increase in the number of users going deep in the funnel. Of the total users visiting the overview page, 80% are going to the details page and another 33% to file a claim page.
Mobile web prototype
The process - how we got to these designs
High-level traveler journey map and insurance life cycle
High-level map
Insurance life cycle
For each piece of observation from research and data, we think about its specific trip phase or specific theme. We then realized for insurance the themes are more around an insurance life cycle instead of trip phases.
User story
The context of the story is such that it covers the maximum scenarios. We have chosen a family trip, with flight, hotel, and car booking. The insurance benefits considered in this story cover:
Click on the image to see the complete user story
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Insurance bought as a single benefit or part of a bundle
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Insurance that covers the whole trip or specifically attached to one LOB
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Insurance that covers pre-trip or in-trip
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Insurance that auto files claims, or requires manual filing claim
Job of insurance within Trips
Theme
Sub-theme
Job
Purchased Insurance
Benefit playback
Benefit status
Benefit coverage
Playback insurance benefits purchased
Help users understand the status of their insurance benefits
Help users understand what is covered and not covered. How to use it and whom to contact for what.
Cancel Insurance
Need to cancel
Where/how to cancel the insurance. Till when users can cancel the insurance for a refund.
Have canceled
When will the money be refunded
Insurance Claim
Need to claim
Have claimed
Communication triggers
Need to claim
How and where to file a claim and what to expect in the claim process
Claim status and the final result
Remind users how coverage is related to their current situation. Remind users to file a claim. Notify the progress of the claim.
Post-purchase trips system and job of each page
Since, insurance is to be integrated on post-purchase, looking at the post-purchase trip system. Identifying the job of each page in the trip system, so as to map what information related to insurance fits at which part of the system.
Trip Folder
Trip Overview
Itinerary
Primary: Show list of upcoming travel, trips should be distinguishable from each other, and users should be able to know products in each folder.
Secondary: Past and cancelled trips.
Primary: High-level product core data.
Secondary: Access to planning tools.
Tertiary: Access to inspirational content and relevant cross-sell to help users plan/build out their trip.
Primary: Core product details that help users get on/to their reservation.
Secondary: Access to secondary itinerary details categorized intuitively.
Content mapping
We mapped the content into buckets based on the jobs and arranged the hierarchy (in collaboration with a dedicated content strategist), as in the content mapping sheet.
Mapping user story to low-fi wireframes
Based on the user story spreadsheet, we created wireframes for each step of the story to understand:
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Entry points at different phases into the trips system for insurance-related tasks
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Potential steps user need to go through for a specific scenario
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Potential new views for insurance within trips system
Entry point and system mapping
For the trip overview, we realized it would be best to keep the entry point like all other products purchased by the user. We explored 6 variants and listed down the pros and cons of each to understand what entry point looks like on the product details page and decide:
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Do we have one consistent source of truth?
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Do we help users to focus on benefits that are related to the product if they come from the product detail page?
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How does insurance on product detail fit into the job of the page?
Pros:
The selected version from the explorations
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The insurance overview page being consistent serves as one source of truth
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Users are trained to go to only one place always for insurance-related info
Cons:
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When the user is on the product detail page, it still needs an extra click to see the insurance benefits
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When landing on the insurance overview page, the user still needs to filter out the applicable benefits to that LOB
System and page designs, and user testing
We arrived onto the first draft of the system and page-level designs which were then populated with real content for user testing. We changed the content at a few places after the research and launched the first version as shared towards the start of this documentation.
Design library and UI design
At Expedia, we follow an internal design library. Designers working on different LOBs, teams, and time-zones use this library to make sure our designs are consistent and we provide our users with a coherent experience. It also reduces the need for any custom code. The designs for the new post-purchase system were built using standard components from the library and handed off for implementation.
Next steps
The page was launched only for specific LOBs, covering only Flights and Hotel bookings. Also, assurance products are not a part of the first launch, it was limited to insurance. These all are follow-ups. Detailed notifications and alerts will also be taken as a follow-up step.
View this site on desktop for more details on this project.
I'd love to hear from you
Email me at tanyaswami1@gmail.com • Connect on LinkedIn