Nespresso: Redefining the loyalty program
Nespresso France wanted to optimise their loyalty program, especially for their biggest clients, the “Ambassadors”.
This project was an UX as well as Creative brief, in which I lead the prelimenary research, user testings and interviews, and wireframes.
The Project
The Brief: optimise the loyalty program of Nespresso to increase customer retention
For: Nespresso
My Role: Lead UX Designer
Tools: Figma, Sketch
Heuristic Review; Competitive Benchmarking; Quantitative Survey; User Interviews; Wireframe
The challenge:
Nespresso France has a 3-tier membership loyalty program. They wanted to redefine their loyalty program in order to get closer to their customer base but also increase the retention of their customers, focusing on the “Ambassadors”.
The approach:
I started this project with a lay of the land, conducting a Heuristic Review of the current experience for the loyalty program. I then launched a quantitative survey to understand the relationship of users with the loyalty program. I dug deeper with 9 user interviews to gain more qualitative insights (including 4 Ambassdors). Finally, I designed a wireframe to brief an UI expert to mock up the proposed improved loyalty program screen.
The outcome:
The main takeaway from the research phase was the lack of clarity of the benefits offered to the customers, as well as the lack of knowledge of their status within the program. The experience online felt generic, impersonal and transactional, contrary to the experience in store seen as premium and personalised.
The solution:
Redesigning the member’s page to make it more personalised with specific information about the customer’s tastes and consumption habits, as well as “gamifying” the access to gifts and badges, allowed to have better clarity in terms of member’s status but also in terms of engagement thus retention.
The Research
I started this research project with a Heuristic review of the current experience of the loyalty program.
From there I launched a qualitative survey (106 respondents) to then gather more information through 9 user interviews.
Heuristic Review; Quantitative Survey; User Interviews
Heuristic Review and Audit
Focusing on the different areas throughout the member’s journey (from login to checkout) I highlighted areas of improvement to better the clarity and overall user journey.
User Survey and Interviews
With a 10-question survey and 106 respondents, I was able to grasp the consumption habits of the customers, why they chose Nespresso, see if the loyalty program had an impact on their engagement to the brand and were the expections for the brand Nespresso.
Survey results:
Out of 106 respondents, 83 were active customers
54.2% chose to buy online because of the ease of process and free delivery
61% bought in-store because of the premium experience
71.2% did not know they were part of Nespresso’s loyalty program nor did they know their status
When asked what they would like to see in the loyalty program:
1. Promotions/discounts
2. Personalisation
3. Découvertes (events, experiences, new capsules to test)
4. More/better clarity of existing benefits
The user interviews helped me gather more details into the impact of loyalty programs on customers’ engagement and their view on Nespresso’s loyalty scheme
9 interviews - 4 with the status of “Ambassador”
« Je n’arrive pas à me souvenir… ah si peut-être une réduction de 80c. J’ai cru que c’était une blague »
Translation: “I can’t remember… ah yes maybe a discount of 80p. I thought it was a joke”
« La dernière fois, j’ai reçu un coffret découverte, alors c’est très gentil mais sur 10 capsules « à découvrir », j’en connaissais déjà 8 ! »
Translation: “The last time, I received a discovery box, it was really nice but out of 10 capsules “to discover”, I already knew 8!”
« Je suis cliente Nespresso pour la qualité du café mais j’achète toujours les mêmes car je ne sais pas ce qu’il y a d’autre et n’ai pas le temps de chercher »
Translation: “I am a customer of Nespresso for the quality of coffee but I always buy the same ones because I don’t know what else is available and I don’t have time to look for it myself”
« La boutique Nespresso est une expérience premium, on se sent chouchouté. Par contre j’utilise le site comme un site d’e-commerce, juste pour passer commande. »
Translation: “The Nespresso store offers a premium experience, you feel pampered. However, I use the website like any other e-commerce website, to buy.”
« Je suis sûrement ambassadeur [vu ma consommation] mais je ne le sais pas et je ne l’ai jamais ressenti. »
Translation: “I should be ambassador [given my consumption] but I don’t know and I’ve never felt like it.”
The Solution
From the research, it was clear that we needed to add personalisation, recommendations and status clarity on both member status and benefits.
Personalisation:
Profile picture
Color code tied to status
Taste profile
Badges
Known flavors
Articles
Recommendations:
Coffee recommendations according to taste profile
Coffee discovery recommendations according to taste
Gift recommendations according to consumption
Clarity:
Color code tied to status
Link to full benefits of current status
Progress bar to unlock next status/benefit
Available gifts tied to status and needed consumption to unlock
Unlocked benefit pop-up
Final thoughts and learnings
This brief allowed me to put my business background to the service of the users. With redefining the member’s page of the loyalty program, I was able to address both the user challenges of lack of clarity and personalisation and the business challenge at hand of engagement and retention.
Introducing personalisation, recommendations and status clarity, served both the users’ need for a relationship to the brand and a better understanding of the loyalty program, and Nespresso’s need for engagement, retention and ultimately reorders.
Part of a wider creative brief, it was a learning experience to work with a wider team of designers and be able to collaborate on ideas outside my scope of UX.