Problems
😕 Problem #1
Difficulty in finding trip information
After booking, guests received multiple transactional emails with information on check-in/out times, directions, house rules, or local recommendations. This confused guests and operational challenges for our team.
😕 Problem #2
Chaotic trip planning experience
Guests spent excessive time organizing their trips, instead of fully relaxing and enjoying their stay with Raus.
😕 Problem #3
Frequent contact with the Customer Service team for repetitive questions
Many common guest questions could be resolved with better information delivery, allowing our team more time to focus on more critical issues.
😕 Problem #4
Updating printed guides was challenging
Maintaining printed guides in every cabin required a significant amount of work, taking away valuable time from the marketing team.
The goal for our guests was to simplify the trip planning process, giving them more time to savor their stay and create lasting memories
Goals
💰 Business goals
Improve operational efficiency
- Decrease guest interactions with Customer Service.
- Eliminate printed guidebooks in each cabin, relieving the Marketing Team of this responsibility and saving some trees in the process.
🙂 Guests goals
A stress-free trip-planning experience
Provide a smooth and comfortable trip-planning experience to align with the company motto: #time_well_spent.
Impact
- ✅ Fewer requests for the Guest Experience Team.
- ✅ Printed guides were removed, reducing the Marketing Team’s workload.
- ✅The digital guidebook became the primary source for cabin information, simplifying team operations.
- ✅ Positive feedback from guests regarding their planning process.
- ✅ First time that a digital product was made in-house from scratch.
Process
1️⃣ Project kick-off
The Project Manager and I designed together the product roadmap. Our strategy involved launching a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with just essential features. This approach allowed us to quickly start, test the product on selected cabins, and make improvements based on guest feedback.
2️⃣ Explore
In this phase, we explored various solutions for how the app should work and determined the key features needed. Our goal was to create a guide where all the necessary information would be easy to find.
After several rounds of sketches, low fidelity wireframes, and iterations with the stakeholders, we generated a lofi prototype to test internally.
Sitemap and levels of information
3️⃣ Deliver
We internally tested our low-fidelity prototype and made iterations until we were confident in launching it. Throughout the delivery phase, the prototype evolved from low fidelity to a more detailed version. To speed up the process, we utilized pre-existing UI components from our website.
4️⃣ Implementation
We used the final prototype as the hand-off tool for developers. All the flows, screens, and animations were well-defined from the beginning. During this phase, I assisted the developers, helping them with any questions they had about the design and user flows.
🚀 Launch
For the launch, we chose specific cabins to run a soft launch. Our goal was to test if the Companion was functioning as intended before implementing it in all cabins.
We also modified our transactional emails to inform our guests about the new guidebook. This way, Raus guests could make the jump to the guidebook smoothly.
🔎 User testing
We didn’t have the resources to conduct detailed user testing, but we had a feedback form that we sent to all our guests after their stay with Raus. The response rate for this form was quite high, so we were confident that we would receive enough feedback to improve the app.
After a few weeks, we received valuable feedback from our guests, allowing us to start making small adjustments to Companion. We iterated over time, working towards creating a better product.
UI components
Lessons learned
The Companion project was my first time working in every step of the process, from planning the roadmap to overseeing the final product implementation. Since I was new in the company and the only designer, and it was also the first time we made a product from scratch at Raus, things didn't go as smoothly as I hoped.
Despite the challenges, this experience taught me valuable lessons in stakeholder management and improved my ability to communicate design concepts effectively to non-design audiences.
Planned new look and features
Raus Companion is currently available in every cabin, and it has greatly improved our guests' stay experience