2019-2020 hotelier view of Partner Central’s integrated messaging system
Overview
As late as 2016, Expedia’s lodging suppliers (referred to henceforth as both “partners” or “hoteliers”) and Expedia travelers didn’t have a way to communicate directly with each other. Multiple signals indicated it was urgent to create a messaging system for hoteliers so they could ensure a seamless travel experience for their guests:
High call volumes to both traveler and hotelier customer service
Bad reviews from both travelers and hoteliers over lack of communication access to each other
Observations and comments from hoteliers in research studies of the Partner Central platform
Summary
My role: Senior UX designer for this product for 3+ years
Skills: UX Design, info architecture, product definition, prototyping, user testing, journey mapping
Launch dates: Continuous features and improvements between 2013 and 2020
Outcomes
Over time, we tested and rolled out features that allowed properties and guests to connect more directly; usage of this messaging product exploded. Absolute growth in properties using the platform went from 1K to 330K in 2 years, and we saw an average of 45M messages per year between partners and guests.
Partner-facing features launched:
Filter by guest status (booked, in-stay, checked-out)
Flag a message
Read receipts
Set up message templates and send bulk messages
Attach files to messages
Response time playback
Set up aliases/masked emails for hotels
Integrated special request alerts (made during booking)
In-stay feedback so partners can respond to in-house guest needs
Request arrival time from guest, captured as structured data
Notification settings consolidation
Goal
Enabling partners to communicate more easily with their guests was a platform approach to solving multiple use cases using the power of messaging. In addition to adding this feature to our business partner platform, I collaborated with the Expedia travel site designers to make sure the messaging experiences integrated seamlessly into the travel consumer’s experience.
Collection of partner comments from usability sessions and emails to customer feedback site, aggregated here for the design team’s Message Center pitch deck
Methodology
My approach to problem-solving is pragmatic. Are users prevented from doing something they need? Do users want this feature? Does it fit into our existing tech stack, and can our developers build it? Will it be usable once built, and are there considerations we need to make to accommodate real-world usage of the product?
To answer these questions, I delved into the ethnographic studies Expedia’s researchers had done with hoteliers around the world. I did my own contextual inquiries by visiting hotels to observe large and small lodging partners manage their Expedia bookings. Key takeaways from these studies:
Partners wouldn’t always be in front of our web-based platform when they did this work--give them easy mobile options
Partners had many of attention-competing windows and programs open when they used our system; keep things simple so their job is easy
Additional product-defining activities I conducted:
Doing competitive analyses of similar existing messaging systems (Etsy, AirBnB, Amazon sellers) to determine industry best practices
Design-led journey mapping and task flow diagramming to determine primary messaging workflows
Prioritizing user stories based on highest user impact/easiest to build
Conducting content audits to make sure messaging terminology would be consistent between workflow moments and across the platform features
Approach
Customer paths diagram from design pitch deck for Messaging System overhaul
It was clear that the Partner Central platform needed a more robust way of facilitating communication between lodging partners and traveler guests. My product and content colleagues and I put together a pitch deck advocating for a conversation feature, approached as a system integrated into the existing reservations workflow. The system would need to meet multiple user scenarios and let travelers (and hoteliers) communicate in channels that suited their needs and circumstances.
I combined the list of best practices gleaned from competitive analyses with known partner needs, and it was clear our system needed to do the following:
Allow users to create and receive messages (before and after bookings)
Get alerts on message receipt
Enable users to manage their message alerts and notification frequency
Manage those messages (show history, message state, delete, duplicate, etc)
Provide insights to users based on its usage (response time averages, analytics, insights)
Starting with a chat window
Screens from an early user test showing partner and traveler sides of a message exchange
We started with a foundation messaging service integrated into the Partner Central reservation management workflow, and its counterpart traveler facing “chat” window users could access from the Expedia site or app. To determine a feature roadmap to this new basic messaging service, we considered a broad array of factors both technical and human. Partner Central’s annual Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) survey results also helped to prioritize features based on customer pain points.
Imagining a system that could address a myriad user communication needs also presented a lot of questions:
What new chat technologies could we harness (chatbot, machine learning, personalization)?
How can this message system complement the email and messaging clients partners are already using?
Would partners use direct messaging to ask users to cancel with Expedia and rebook directly?
How could these messages be differentiated from those automatically sent via Expedia transactions and marketing?
What messaging types could we structure for partners; what types needed to stay unstructured?
What downstream (and upstream) system features did we need to take into account with this new product (User account settings, permissions, etc)
Additional Message Center Features
UI enabling partners to attach files or images to their messages with guests
My own message to a hotel using the UI I designed (traveler view)
Partner notifications hub design concept