Rewards at POS
UX / Product Design
Project Overview
Role: Design end-to-end, research, testing
Team: UX Design Lead & myself, Product Management, PODs, Loyalty
Duration: Feb–June 2021
In 2021, Gap Inc launched a new Rewards Program that changed the way customers interact with the brands in the portfolio. This launch changed the program to be cross-brand rather than by individual brand meaning that all rewards could be earned and used across all four major brands. This was a crucial shift in the business which required change at the point of sale for the in-store experience.
Objective: Add the Rewards Program into the Sell app, our native point of sale app used by every store associate in NA, so customers can use their rewards while shopping in-store.
Challenge
The Sell app is used at every Gap Inc store. Meaning Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta need this update to be able to process transactions for customers that are part of the new and existing Rewards program. This also meant that some customers might have signed up online, which has different requirements than the in-store experience. This app is also used on tablet as our main POS and mobile for associates that are on the floor.
Problem: The current version of the app only allowed for one reward to be used at a time when the customer became eligible to use it.
Solution: A new program feature that is seamless and easy to adopt without being disruptive in transactions as we expected usage to increase significantly.
Research & Examples
First, we sought out to find what exists out there for Rewards programs. We looked at a variety of brands that use a points system for their rewards.
Our Consumer Insights team found that some of the best examples came from banking, airline and retail apps/websites for how to use and apply points. With this knowledge, my teammate and I went ahead and gathered examples for what our vision could look like.
Examples that aligned with our ideas the most.
Looking within: The previous version of the app only allowed for incremental usage of “points” so that in order to burn $5, customers had to earn a certain amount first. Once a customer was found as a member, the experience was very limited. Below is the user-flow and high-level screens of the previous version of the app.
Ideation & Refinement
The screens below were ideas that my Lead designer and I worked on together to quickly explore possible designs that would help us land the best experience to implement the redemption of Rewards at the POS. We also did quick initial tests with these designs with small groups of store associates.
The slider was too error prone and not easy to work with mid transaction.
This was okay, but associates thought it took too long to type out the amount of points.
This was too time consuming. We couldn't do it incrementally because customers could now redeem as many points as they would like.
This made no sense to our associates. Not very clear and the button also got cut off. Not ideal.
Final Testing
We refined the end-to-end experience and tested a few designs that we felt confident were headed in the right direction. We tested for discovery and usability to figure out which way is the easiest to navigate thru this change in the program. We also tested to see if it would be easy to search a customer by email and adding a phone number if it was not on their profile.
Refined user-flow of the Loyalty lookup and point redemption experience.
Due to Covid, most of our tests were done via Zoom and moderated. We needed to get in-depth feedback on specific features.
This did not perform well because the alpha-keyboard covered the keypad and associates thought they could not search by phone number.
This design performed well but it wasn't very clear that the points section was meant to be tapped to show the dropdown picker.
This concept performed well but it was too slow and time consuming. This became an issue when customers would change their mind about how many points to use.
This design performed best because it was clear that they needed to select the amount of points clearly laid out to pick from.
Final Deliverables
In order to fully enhance the experience without disrupting transactions, I decided to introduce a lookup via email option that would then allow associates to add the customer's phone number to their profile. Once recognized, reward redemption was simplified by using a picker that would allow associates to select points quickly to redeem as discounts.
Furthermore, I decided to set up this experience for the future by creating this new Rewards page that would allow the associate to redeem points and also select future rewards that will be released as the program grows and matures.
Rewards at POS
Lookup Enhancements
Since customers are now able to enroll in the Rewards (FKA Loyalty) Program online using their email, phone number is not a requirement. However in stores, the lookup process is a lot quicker using phone number.
Because of this, I needed to solve for the customers whose accounts were enrolled using email while giving them the option to add their number to the profile, which is something we did not support before.
Points Redemption
Redeeming points became a lot easier and faster with the picker design that I proposed. With the newly redesigned Loyalty banner and Loyalty page, there is now a clear way of displaying the customer's information and rewards available.
Legacy & New Rewards
Because there is a period of time in which customers will have legacy rewards, we needed to support for redeeming both legacy and new points in transactions. After one year, the legacy rewards will no longer be supported.
Mobile Screens
I put more emphasis on the tablet experience because less than 5% of transactions take place on our mobile devices. However, there are some stores at Banana Republic and Athleta that use mobile as their primary POS.
Performanace & Results
87.1% Satisfaction Rate
With this update adapting to the newly launched Rewards program, we reached the highest ranking satisfaction rate that the Sell app had up until this point in time. This was a big milestone not only for me, but for the team, stakeholders involved, and the business as a whole.
This launch was one of the most successful launches our Product team had and it helped store associates enroll millions of customers.
Below are some screenshots from our Insights team when we found out the results.
Results chart from before and after the launch of the updated version of the Sell app with the Rewards enhancements.
Quotes from store associates from around the U.S. appreciating the updates. This felt really good to see.
😊😊😊
This is the impact the new Rewards program had across the business. The Sell app updates played a huge role in this success as the driver in the store's experience.
Learnings & Takeaways
In this project I learned that sometimes the solution is a lot simpler than expected. While we were trying to make something brand new that would require a lot of training, we ended up in a position where our components became a solve that allowed for our end users to adopt this new behavior very quickly and without any discomfort because we introduced a behavior they’re familiar with from the start.
What I loved about this project is that I got to hear from the field directly, thus, applying their feedback directly into my designs without having to play telephone. I got the chance to truly listen to our users and implement their thoughts into my work so that in the end, they are able to provide our customers with a great experience.
*Due to NDA made with Gap Inc, I cannot provide exact numbers in data in regard to the research, business gain/loss, and or results that are still ongoing.
The information shared in this project is information that is available to the public.
Full names are protected for privacy reasons.