Travel smarter, not harder: How I attempted to increase Goibibo’s AOV and boost customer satisfaction.

Cool, So I am a designer who have a strong desire to understand the root cause of problems and to look at them from different angles in order to find the most effective solution.

This case study is a part of the 48 hours Product Design Challenge that I took part in. So let’s dive right into it.

The Product and The Problem

Goibibo

As a part of this challenge the product which was given to me was Goibibo, an online travel booking platform in India that allows users to book hotels, flights, and other travel-related services.

Core Idea to Work On

Add a feature to cross sell other services of the same product while checking out a particular service

Currently, the Goibibo app does not have any feature for cross selling other services while checking out from a particular service. The core idea of the feature is to allow Goibibo to cross sell other travel-related services to its users. These could include rental cars, travel insurance, activities and experiences, and more.

Defining the Problem

“Users were facing difficulty in discovering and purchasing additional services during their hotel booking process on the Goibibo app.
This resulted in missed revenue opportunities for the company and added inconvenience for users.

My goal was to make the process of discovering and purchasing additional services more effortless for users by providing them with relevant recommendations at the time of their initial hotel booking.”

First let’s jump on to the design I made to solve the problem (First Iteration)

Comparing the original screen and my revamped design

1. Introducing “You might need these” feature
Currently there is no feature such as cross selling products on Goibibo app as you can see in the first picture above.

I divided services into two categories — Hotel related services and Other services. The first feature “You might need these” is exclusively for services related to hotels and that’s why I kept it along the section containing rooms category cards.

These services include spa, room upgrade, late checkout, etc. and activities & experiences provided by hotel like open mic, bonfire, etc.

I have made the call-to-action (CTA button) easily accessible for users. I will explain how this feature works in detail below in the 3rd point.

2. Introducing “Other Services”

This carousel consists of all the services which the user can avail based on their booking info. I have given an option to pre-book cabs and bus tickets as users might prefer to pre-book cabs and buses according to their travel needs.

To ensure that the recommended additional services were relevant to each individual user, the feature takes into account the user’s booking status.

For example, if a user is booking a hotel for 13 Jan, the algorithm will prioritize recommending flights around that day to align with the user’s travel plans.

I did not provide too much information on those cards because I don’t want to overwhelm my users. Instead, I have just showcased that these are the additional bookings that they can opt for.
If they are interested, they will tap on the button and explore options in a new page. This will reduce drop offs according to my understanding.

Flow to add services related to hotel

3. Bottom sheet for hotel related services, because users should be able to quickly navigate through all the services they want for their stays. Users can simply check all the boxes that they want for their booking and the price will get added up in the bottom price card.

4. Users can check all their bookings before making the payment, in the Review Booking page. I have paid attention on the placement of elements to make sure it is easy to understand.

I made some changes to the design after testing the prototype among the real users

I wanted to gain confidence on my design before making the rest of the UI. So I quickly made a working prototype of the UI and tested it on couple of users.
I got some valuable feedbacks which I implemented on previous screens.

1. Increased the discoverability of “You might need these” section.
One of the user completely ignored this section. She thought that it was the heading for the carousel below it. So I made two changes to correct it.
(i) I connected the “You might need these” section with the line and arrow pattern as above it. This signified that these services are somewhat related to rooms or hotels.
(ii) I increased the font size, the CTA button size and the padding to make it clearly distinguishable from the carousel.

2. Added a confetti after completing extra bookings like flight ticket or a cab service.
After selecting their flight seats, users will get a pop up after returning to the hotel booking page. This will help users understand that their flight booking is confirmed and they can now proceed to checkout.

3. Edit options for other services.
I forgot adding this feature before and it was rightly pointed out by one of the users. Users should be able to easily change their booking details before checking out as they still haven’t paid yet.
I kept “Make Changes” button in blue color which is the brand color of Goibibo. It indicates that the user have already opted for this service.

👇Play around the feature and let me know if it works for you!

The Approach

Time management was a major challenge in this project. Keeping this in mind, my priority was to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) which solves the given problem and includes the core features and functions that are essential for the product to be usable.

Keep reading to understand how I achieved it.

Research methodology that I used for this project was totally new for me!

I tried to understand the current flow of the app; what are the services that they provide; what are the gaps and how can I bridge them.

Due to time constraint I couldn’t go for user interviews. So I made use of ChatGPT in the process to gain more clarity whenever needed.
I built assumptions, hypothesis, went deeper into the possibilities of the feature, all with the help of ChatGPT. It made my job really easy.

Current flow for booking hotel rooms

Current flow: Search Destination → Choose a hotel → Select a room → Review booking and pay.

Gaps that I found in the current flow

The gap in the current flow was that users were not aware of all the additional services they could book alongside their hotel, such as car rentals and airport transfers.
These services were not being effectively promoted during the booking process, leading to a lack of awareness and uptake among users.

Users may perceive this as a lack of control & freedom and may drop-off.

Assumptions that I made about users and the business

• The users are willing to pay for additional services.
• The integration with external service providers will be smooth.

How I broke down the “cross-selling of services” feature to find a better opportunity

• Services can be divided into two categories.

1. Services that are provided by the hotels in which users want to book a room. These include services like spa, room upgrade, late checkout, etc. and activities & experiences provided by hotels like open mic, bonfire, etc. This varies from hotel to hotel.
2. Other services which are not related to hotels and are provided by Goibibo. These include booking flight tickets, cabs and bus, travel insurance, etc.

• To ensure that the recommended additional services were relevant to each individual user, the feature takes into account the user’s booking status.
  This will reduce the total time users take to check out.

Impact on business metrics

The implementation of this feature is expected to increase revenue for Goibibo, directly increasing the average order value (AOV). It will also increase customer loyalty, as users will be able to find most of their travel needs in one place.

How I took inspiration from existing designs

To get a clearer idea about the cross-selling feature, I tried to analyze apps that are providing this feature already. This helped me understand the patterns that users are used to.

I chose e-commerce apps for research because it is my hypothesis that users tend to purchase extra or additional products more often in these kind of apps.

It gave me a broader perspective to look into my problem, and I was able to identify new opportunities for improvement in the product.

Designing the solution

The first challenge was to decide where should the cross selling of services be introduced to users. I came up with four ways to introduce it:

1. During the booking process: One option is to introduce the feature as users are booking their hotel rooms. This will allow them to easily add additional services to their bookings and complete everything in one place.
2. On the confirmation page: Another option is to introduce the feature on the confirmation page after a user has completed their booking. This could be done through a pop-up window or banner suggesting additional services that may be of interest.
3. In the account dashboard: For users who have already booked their travels, the feature could be introduced in the account dashboard or through personalized email recommendations.
4. On the homepage: The feature could also be promoted on the homepage of the app, either through a banner or a dedicated section highlighting the additional services available.

After a lot of brainstorming and discussion with my peers, I decided to add the feature during the booking process as it made most sense.
Users would be most interested in booking additional services before checking out. Paying for everything only once would be very convenient for users.

Wireframing

I sketched my initial ideas on the screenshots. My idea was to add a section named “Additional Services” in the Select Room page.

I added a card below category of rooms with a button on the right end. Tapping that button will open up a bottom sheet in which services related to hotels will be shown on top with checkboxes. Users can simply check their required services. Below that I thought of adding a carousel for “Other Services” which includes booking flights, cabs, etc.

Then I made few paper sketches to gain more clarity and to visualize how the whole thing will work together.

After making wireframes, I immediately explained the concept to my peers and they gave some valuable feedbacks.

I implemented one of the feedbacks which was to remove the carousel for “Other Services” from the bottom sheet.
The overlay should have have minimum information and should not have any options to further explore as it might be confusing for users and they may drop-off. So I decided to keep overlay just for the services related to hotel and moved carousel below.

The final flow:

1. Enter a destination.
2. Choose a hotel from a list of various hotels, “Hotel details” page will open up
3. Once you like a hotel, tap on “Select Rooms” button.
4. Select the type of room you want for your stay out off all the options.
5. Choose all the services that are essential for your stay in hotel. You will find these services by tapping on “Check Services” button.
6. Scroll through “Other Services” carousel and book all the additional services that you might need for your travel like flight, cabs, travel insurance, etc.
7. Tap on “Continue” once you are done with all the bookings and head on to “Review Booking” page.
8. Go through all your bookings and make payment.

Now that I had a rough idea, I went ahead with designing it on figma. With my group, I tried to understand the design system of Goibibo and made all the components necessary for my solution. A big thanks to all the group members for their constant support!

At the end of 48 hours, I had my project completed, and a presentation half-made which I completed the next day. Special thanks my mentor Anudeep Ayyagari for this challenge and constant support.

Areas for expansion

Though time constraints limited the scope of my work, I believe there are still opportunities for further development. I would have explored “Other Services” feature in a better manner to understand the different use cases.

Key learnings from this project

1. The value of regular check-ins with the team: Regular check-ins with my group helped me to identify and address any issues that may arise.
2. We can always build assumptions about what will work best for users and business based on what situation demands.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about my project. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement or areas where you think I could have done better.

You can reach out to me through:

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyas-varma-783a20178/
Email — sdvarma01@gmail.com