Creating the All-Star host program
Product design > Turo case studies > Quality : All-star Host
Synopsis
Turo is the largest peer to peer car sharing company in the US based out of San Francisco. It serves as a marketplace for people who own cars (hosts) to share their cars with people who need a car (guests).
In 2019 my team set out to improve share of 5-star trips. We focused on creating a host status that included both the all-star host badge as well as a warning system when a host’s ratings fell below our standards.
Details
Team: Host
Platforms: IOS/ Android/Web
Role: Senior Product Designer (Design lead on a cross functional team)
Timeline: 6 months months, multiple projects
Skils: UX/UI, User research, Journey mapping, Art direction, Design strategy
Company Problem
In 2019, Turo was focused on holding our hosts more accountable for bad behavior and low quality performance metrics.
How might we incentivize hosts on providing high quality experiences for guests?
Existing experience
Our team had previously designed a “Host Hub” that showed them everything from their earnings, to their reviews, and performance metrics, such as:
Response rate - how often they respond to a request
Acceptance rate - how often they accept trip requests
Commitment rate - how often they
5-star ratings - % of trips that receive 5-stars
While this host hub was a great beginning, the problem was that hosts had no incentive or reward for achieving higher performance nor did they have consequences for falling below our standards.
Goals and metrics
Improve share of 5-star trips
We knew that guests who leave 5-star reviews have the highest likelihood of returning. Hosts have a big part in the guest experience, so it made sense to focus on host behavior.
Give hosts a target to aspire to
Create a quality host program that incentivizes and recognizes our best hosts.
Hold hosts accountable for bad behavior
Warn hosts when their performance is sub par, give them tips on how to improve, and ban them if they continue to decline.
Close the loop holes
Even after banning hosts, they quickly figured out how to get back in by signing up with a different email or a different phone number. We wanted to make sure they were
Part one
Creating the All-Star Host program
The company set out to design a program similar to Airbnb’s Superhost badge that would acknowledged our best hosts and give them perks to incentivize more hosts to aspire for the badge.
Competitive analysis
I audited several products that rely on reputation building in order to convert customers. I looked at Airbnb, Uber, Yelp, Thumbtack, and dribble for inspiration.
Each had their own way of showing a premium seller, host, or service provider.
Looking at how perks and badges are displayed
Guest-facing experience
Badge shape
Creating the badge
The name
Many stakeholders had strong opinions on the naming. The marketing team came up with a short list and deliberated with the executive team and legal until finally, they landed on All-Star host.
While the marketing team was defining a name for the badge, I lead a small team of designers on an exploration of visual treatments for the badge itself.
We were assuming (wrongly) that the name would be generic enough that the icon that represented it would work no matter what.
Credit Lulu Tang and Nathan Mandreza supported generating some of these concepts
Usability testing
The company rallied behind the term “All-Star Host”. I had some concerns that a badge with the name “star” in the title would be conflated with the star ratings.
I conducted a quick usability test with guests to answer this question:
Findings
Most guests noticed the badge, and when asked what they thought it meant, they assumed it meant a measure of quality for the host. We decided that this was enough signal to move forward with All-Star host.
We continued to iterate on the ribbon and star concept for the final representation of All-star host.
The final shape of the badge
I worked with Nathan Mandreza, one of Turo’s Brand designers, to get the final design down. He also created a delightful animation that would show on informational landing pages, emails, and the host experience.
Part two
The guest experience
I audited the guest booking funnel to identify the key places where the all-star host badge could live. What I soon discovered was how we display host information is inconsistent throughout this experience.
We started thinking through web because web has landing pages we needed to account for.
While auditing the existing experience for places to potentially add all-star host badge, I realized the inconsistencies in displaying hosts information.
I also noted un-necessary modal inconsistencies (3 and 4)
Thinking systematically
I designed a host information component that would be used across multiple pages. This significantly cut down design and engineering debt and unified the experience for guests.
Part two
The host experience
We had many questions while developing this program.
How do we educate hosts on this program?
How will we evaluate, award, and remove the badge?
How will a host know if they received or lost the badge?
Early on, we white boarded a lot of loose flows like this one below to understand the messaging strategy.
Developing states
The program would evaluate hosts on a quarterly basis. Some of the performance metrics needed time to mature, and to make up for that, we had a 2 week pending state before the final assessment date.
The All-Star Host module states:
- you don’t yet have it
- you have it
- you’re being assessed
Showing a history
The existing performance page only showed your current performance metrics and updated in real time. Because we would be doing assessments on a quarterly basis, we felt hosts would want the ability to look back on past quarters to see their performance metrics and whether or not they were granted the badge.
Designing a moment of delight
After Nate and I finalized the all-star badge illustration, I asked him to animate and conceptualize the badge and text to make it feel more dynamic and special. I was able to use this to help my cross functional team see my vision and buy in on the additional scope.
Final Outcome
The All-star Host program was received very well by our host community. Hosts had been asking for more ways to set themselves apart for years and with the All-Star Host badge, they felt heard.
Through the combination of the program, the warning system, and closing up some loop holes that allow bad actors to get back in on the platform, we were able to :
Anointed 6.9k All-Star Hosts in Q3, up 15% each quarter since launch
Helped lift five-star trips metric up 5% in Q4
Created a cohesive and delightful visual design system for All-Star Host
View other host quality initiatives:
Part three: Granular ratings