Case study: Trip Inspection
Getaround is a carsharing marketplace where owners are able to share their cars and renters are able to book cars instantly. In 2009, Getaround led the market in the carsharing platform.
Over the years, as the company started to scale with more customers there were a number of unforeseen key issues. This started to slowly decrease the overall user experience and by the start of 2020, the business refocused on the skyrocketing claims costs.
Documentation
There was a desperate need for a revamped product experience so customers could provide a comprehensive documentation of the car’s condition. I was part of the project to redesign the trip inspection experience.
The Renter app - designed in 2009, struggled to scale alongside the growth of the company. Not only was proper documentation missing, but app reliability and performance issues were increasing.
Audit of original inspection flow
THE CHALLENGE
Lower claims cost
Our goal for this project was to lower claims costs at Getaround. The idea was simple, to mandate pre-trip inspection photos and just add in post trip inspections. However, we weren’t just trying to ask renters to add any photos, we needed specific photos that were consistently taken across multiple renters.
Key objectives:
Accurately pinpoint the party at fault without needing to dig through multiple sources
Efficiently process claims
Make it fast & easy for renters to provide comprehensive documentation
My role
I led the design of trip inspection experience between September 2019 and Feb 2020. I worked alongside 4 mobile engineers(iOS & Android) & 1 product manager.
I worked on the project from the beginning (research) to end (launch).
This experience was launched in March 2020.
PROCESS
Backbone
UNDERSTAND
Interviewed internal teams across the organization such as claims, trust & safety, customer happiness. Talked with renters & owners on the platform to understand pain points from their perspective.
IDENTIFY
Identified core jobs needed to be done by both internal & external customers.
EXECUTE
Using what was learned through all the internal & external interviews we were able to use that information to improve the product.
KICKOFF
How it started.
Who
The primary end user was the Getaround claims team because ultimately the product needed to service their pain points. However, there were other users (owners, renters, safety, customer happiness) that would benefit from an improved product experience.
What
We knew we needed to obtain photos from renters at the beginning and at the end of the trip in order to build a more complete picture.
Why
The claims team was spending a significant amount of their workflow sifting through multiple sources of truth in order to gain clarity into the car’s condition and timeline. Photos were not taken properly by renters and were only taken at the beginning and never at the end.
Insights.
POOR UX
Flow prevented a renter from providing photos.
MULTIPLE SOURCES OF TRUTH
It would take hours for claims dive into different sources to determine what happened.
MISSING DOCUMENTATION
Photo documentation was optional. Nonexistent end trip photo flow.
DISCOVERY
MISSING PIECES
A common thread throughout conversations I had with internal team members across the organization was that the claims team had trouble identifying the party at fault. Thus providing claims payouts to those unnecessarily because of the lack of proper documentation.
It became clear that not only did we need to make inspection photos mandatory, but we needed specific photos from renters. This way different team members could scan through photos quickly to identify any issues.
DEEPER INSIGHTS
What are the current issues?
Prior to redesign, the claims cost was over $1 million every 6 months.
Time spent by Claims team members was around 2-3 hours per claim sifting through multiple sources of information.
Looking at all the photos received only about 1 in 5 trips taken by renters.
REFRAMING THE PROBLEM
Lack of proper photos causes claims processing issues & increased costs
The renter experience surfaced several main issues around the lack of proper documentation, policy enforcement, and inefficient processing workflows.
“How might we help renters provide more photos?”
As a result, how might we help renters provide more photos? Our proposal was Trip Inspections, a required flow that we asked renters to provide 4-point pre & post trip inspection photos.
Original pre-trip inspection user flow
Redesign
INTRODUCING TRIP INSPECTIONS
Getaround now requires renters to provide visual documentation at the beginning and at the end of each trip. Thus providing protection to both renters and owners now that the claims team can now process claims faster, effectively, and accurately.
Proposed pre-trip inspection flow
4-point inspection
We implemented a 4-point inspection flow, so we would obtain consist images across all renters on the platform.
HOW WE GOT THERE
Who did what when?
Questions asked
How do we design so renters actually take photos that we want?
What context do we need to think about?
What is the ideal output?
Challenges.
Existing product features needed to remain as is because of backend constraints.
Current UX had huge issues where it needed to be resolved so users would even be able to take photos.
Incomplete documentation
Inability to determine what happened
User Testing
Clearly stating what section of the car to take photos of
Just want to take photos and reduce amount of written documentation needed
Want a step by step guide to help users
PIVOTS
What changed & why
Number of photos
We decreased the number from 8 point to 4 point inspection photos (front, left, right, back). We decided to move forward with 4 because based on feedback the inspection process was perceived as a bit long. Also, we wanted to factor in the safety concerns by having someone spend a significant amount of time taking photos while on the street.
Allowing renters to end trip without photos being fully uploaded
Due to technical connection issues, we needed to allow renters to end a trip without their photos being uploaded.
LAUNCH
What did we learn?
Updating copy
Originally the buttons on each page page said “Next” but due to confusion we needed to have additional verbiage around what the renter should expect to see next.
Mobile photo upload
There were significant issues that arose because of the tech debt throughout the years, thus introducing this completely new process made it challenging for the engineers to implement.
METRICS
What was the impact?
Reduce claims cost
The goal was to help the claims team reduce the claims cost by 30% per year. Trip inspections was just one of many initiatives that Getaround tackled in the past year to achieve that goal.
Increase # of photos received/trip
Prior to the trip inspection project, only 1 in 5 trips had photos associated. Now with the release of this feature, every single trip has at least 8 photos (4 pre-trip & 4 post-trip).
Completion of inspection flow
We wanted at least 90% of inspections to be completed with photos. We knew there were circumstances where a renter would need to call customer happiness, but we wanted to eliminate any unnecessary manual workflows. There were times in the past where renters would email customer happiness any photos because the app wasn’t working or they just didn’t upload it.