Cross selling gifts @ Ding
Overview
Ding.com, founded in 2006, is a global mobile top-up service that has facilitated over 500 million successful top-ups across 150+ countries through 850+ operators, enabling instant connectivity for families and friends worldwide.
Timeline
Jan 2024 - February 2024
To comply with my confidentiality agreement I have omitted and appropriated confidential information. These designs are a reinterpretation of the original.
Problem
The growth team identified that selling gift cards alongside top-ups would be a new growth stream.
However they faced a challenge in boosting sales of cross-sell gift cards. Despite investing in marketing campaign efforts, sales were not meeting expectations. We made the assumption that the value of gift cards was not being communicated clearly to customers.
We identified that offering discounts on x-sell orders could potentially increase sales, but there was a lack of infrastructure to support such a system.
Hypothesis and background
My Role
I began as the lead and sole Designer tasked with making a cohesive experience of communicating gift card discounts. At this time I was taking care of the app (Android/iOS) experience as well as the Desktop/mobile first. As the team grew I increasingly worked on bigger projects down the line.
Requirements
Using the MoSCoW framework and in collaboration with the PM, our team and the wider teams, we came up with a list of requirements.
We wanted to show the user a discount on the cross sell screen
Requirements for web
Metrics to be monitored
To measure the effectiveness of cross-selling, we focused on these key metrics:
Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who completed a cross-sell transaction.
Average Order Value (AOV): The average value of orders including cross-sold items.
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) Average revenue per user across orders
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of users clicking on cross-selling offers.
I had a look at examples of cross-selling strategies employed by competitors (no examples at this time) and of notable companies.
At this time there was no precedent for an ITU competitor using cross-selling or bundles in their products.
The images below showcase two examples of cross-selling:
Lily Plushie:
This cross-sell strategy aimed to encourage customers to purchase complementary products together.
Maze:
This type of cross-sell was designed to leverage the customer's existing purchase intent and provide a related financial product.
Market research examples of cross selling: duolingo, shopify, udemy, etsy, klarna
Key Insights
I had a lot of questions around whether cross selling was the right approach here and I did some research on cross-selling vs upselling to see what would be more appropriate.
Alignment with User Intent:
Users in the top-up flow are poised for a purchase. Leveraging this intent by offering relevant cross-selling options enhances the likelihood of additional conversions.
Relevance and Value Addition:
Introducing complementary gift card options within the same region enhances user experience. These offerings closely align with users' primary objectives, increasing acceptance and adoption rates.
Top 3 Popular Gift Cards:
We prioritize presenting the top three popular gift cards in each country. This curated selection simplifies choices, preventing decision paralysis for users.
Hick's Law Integration:
Hick's Law cautions against overwhelming users with choices. By focusing on cross-selling within the top-up flow and featuring curated popular gift cards, we ensure a streamlined decision-making process for users, optimizing efficiency.
Upselling versus cross-selling
Mapping out the current and ideal system
We wanted to take a look at both first time users and returning users and understand their touchpoints across their journey to purchasing a top-up .
The customer journey depicted in this diagram showcases the various touchpoints and flow of interactions a user experiences when engaging with the platform. This was done as a quick collaborative workshop with key stakeholders across teams at the beginning of the project.
I wanted to understand the optimal part of the journey to introduce cross sells as it could be both a benefit or a detraction for users.
Upselling versus cross-selling
Within this workshop, we came up with both an immediate solution and also some blue sky opportunities for future development.
First MVP:
Communicate cross sell bundle savings within the journey and post purchase.
Blue Sky Opportunities:
Introduction of Top-Up and Plan Bundles: Tailored offerings to cater to user preferences.
Dismissal of Irrelevant Gift Card Options: Streamlining choices for a more focused user experience.
Integration of Referral Mechanisms and Loyalty Programs: Enhancing user engagement and retention.
By aligning these improvements with key metrics, our aim was to optimize the user experience and foster sustained growth within our platform.
Our marketing team had a Brand Guideline book that they were adhering to and our product team had our own Design System and Styling Guides that we designed.
We worked with the Marketing and CRM team to establish a style guide and components for this particular project to ensure cohesion at all stages of the process. At the beginning of this initiative we set up weekly calls to stay on track with the different teams we were working with.
The customer journey was impacted by different teams across their journey and we needed to ensure a seamless experience.
Image by Eda Akaltun
Development Handover
Handover specifications for developers ensured a smoother development process. I did this for all components and added them into the design system including variations for the desktop, android/iOS teams.
Component handover to developers
Testing
Every month myself and the Customer Success Manager organized a day where users get to come in an test the product live with us. We organize snacks and prizes for our customers as well.
We qualitatively tested the cross sell prototype with a small cohort of 6 people in the office .
”It’s distracting if you show it to me straight away”
“It’s kind of annoying”
“Would be very hard not to understand it. Feels very user friendly”
We also A/B tested the solution and saw an uplift in the variant. This was a contrast to some of the of comments we received in person but could be due to low sample size.
Results
The adoption of tailored cross-selling bundles and localized options led to a tangible uplift in the conversion rate (CVR). Ding observed a substantial increase of 12.1% among returning users completing cross-sell transactions.
Small peek into the Designs
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