Reducing customer service calls by implementing self-service features

Vacasa is a property management company that oversees more than 35,000 homes across the U.S. and internationally. The new “Extend My Stay” feature allows guests to add nights to an existing itinerary resulting in a reduced number of customer service calls, and an increase in overall nights booked and additional revenue.

 
 

R O L E

Usability Testing, Prototyping, UX Design

C R E D I T

This project was completed while employed at Vacasa in collaboration with my PM and development team

The problem

  • Once a guest booked a home they were unable to make adjustments to their itinerary within the Trip Manager portal without calling customer support

  • In feedback from user interviews our guests expressed a desire for more self-serve options

  • By providing an easy way for guests to extend their trip, even after it already started, I hypothesized this would lead to an increase in nights booked

The approach

In the first version of the design I experimented with integrating the booking calendar from vacasa.com into Trip Manager.

  • Showing the full 2 month calendar offered a wide view of availability and gave context to the days they were adding to their trip

  • Fitting the calendar into this context meant shrinking the desktop view to fit into the allotted space.

  • In a usability test 4/5 participants expressed they thought the calendar was too busy

Version 1

In the second iteration I tried a more simplified approach, only showing the user 4 days of availability on both sides of their existing itinerary.

  • Fewer options are more digestible (according to customer support the average extension is 2 nights)

  • The inclusion of the toast tab with number of nights added and additional cost gives context to how the edits impact their overall itinerary

  • In a usability test 4/5 participants preferred this simplified version

Version 2

The Results

After releasing the feature to all users in December 2022 within the first month we saw the following impact:

$73k

Additional Revenue

221

Added Nights

27.5

Customer Support Hours Saved

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Increasing conversion by reducing booking calendar friction

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