Within our Brand Communication class, I was fortunate to work with a small team on a hypothetical rebrand of Zipcar. Despite the fact that Zipcar had gone through a recent rebrand (circa 2013), we felt that there was still additional work that needed to be done in order to establish itself in the sharing community – on a similar level to that of Airbnb and Uber, and improve the customer experience.
My role within the rebrand team was to find ways in which we could improve upon the customer experience. Beyond the pre-existing profiles that current Zipsters (Zipcar users) utilize, I thought it would be best to rate Zipsters on their levels of cleanliness, as well as the condition of the car, upon first receiving the car. Zipcar in the past had found that people tended to take liberties with rental cars, and had actually moved away from individual car lenders, as potential lenders were deterred from installing RFID readers in their cars to read the ZipCards (these ZipCards are how the car is originally opened, as the key are inside the car, upon initial entry), as well as unwilling to adorn their cars in Zipcar paraphernalia.
Rating System
This rating system would allow for two things: (1) members would take precautionary measures to make sure that the car was left in better condition that it was received, as to not be rated poorly, and (2) it will provide Zipcar with data to understand which Zipsters should receive better cars, allowing the most longevity out of their current fleet (car offerings). For example, Zipsters with lower ratings (out of 5 stars) would only see a fleet with older models, lower quality, less expensive cars. Whereas Zipsters with high ratings would have access to all vehicles is Zipcar’s fleet.
In addition to rating of members, Zipsters would also provide commentary on how exactly the vehicle was left, or the Zipcar service in general – providing feedback for not just members, but the organization as a whole. The re-design of the member experience process would also improve overall customer experience and save Zipcar costs in the long run. Both costs associated to cleaning the car, and costs associated to losing customers due to a bad experience with Zipcar would be reduced.
Reward Sytem
To act as an incentive to keep the car in good condition, this rating process would be coupled with a rewards system. Each review submitted by a member would provide the receiving member points – each responding to a level out of 5. For example; no points for 1/5 stars, 5 points for 2/5 stars, 20 points for 3/5, 30 points for 4/5 stars and 40 points if the member receives 5/5 stars. The member can redeem these points for Zipcar miles, where the member could have the car for longer periods of time without the additional cost. The system would also be available online, for customers without access to smartphones.
Revamped App Design
Above is the revamped app design that I created to go along with the new rewards system. This can also be seen in more detail here
On the left is the rating system, in which the Zipster would rate the overall car sharing service (average of all ratings), as well as go into detail on the experiences of the: car quality, car condition, customer service, and the overall experience – also have the option to provide additional comments. In terms of the layout I thought it would be best to make it as clean and as intuitive as possible. The “<” button at the bottom, lead back to the apps home page, and the trophy leads to the rewards page. In order to rate a certain aspect of the car the Zipster simply has to click onto that particular icon.
The screen in the middle represents what the Zipster would see upon taping on the icon relating to the Car Condition (the other experiences would also have the same page setup). The Zipster would provide a rating out of five for the overall car condition, as well as a mood level of happy, neutral or sad based on the exterior cleanliness, interior cleanliness and fuel level of the car, in the case of the car cleanliness category.
Lastly the screen on the right is the rewards page – this being based on the rewards system above. Hypothetically I had just created rewards as additional free miles, however the rewards system has limitless possibilities as to what could be redeemed.
MATT WEIR 