FordPass Rewards
Client:
Ford

Project Overview
Ford's reward programs (plural) were inconsistent and disparate.  We were tasked with combining them into a new, singular one.
​CHALLENGE
An ecosystem of disparate rewards programs. Some of the programs were funded by Ford. Others were funded and ran by dealerships. There was no underlying connection between any of these programs.
​OPPORTUNITY
Show loyal customers that they are valued for choosing to do business with the Ford brand and that the company appreciates them by giving back. Lead the client in user-centered approaches to validate what's best for the customer and not what's easiest for the client.​
RESULT
A cohesive and simplified rewards system that helped customers feel appreciated while simultaneously brand loyalty and increasing return business for Ford and it's dealerships.
Ford Appreciation (FordPass Rewards) was one of four major business initiatives for FordPass in 2019.

How We Worked

Collaboration Across The World

A kickoff meeting was held in-person with members of Ford and each of the seven partnering agencies to align on goals and bounds, timelines, deliverables, etc. The partnered agencies spanned multiple states and a development team based in Poland. We had a weekly meeting to make sure that all parties were aligned on what was going on and where the project stood as design and development progressed.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL

I worked as part of a cross-functional team that included myself (UX) and a creative partner that made up what we called a CRUX team. We both worked closely with our Strategist, Lead Developer, Project Manager, and Product Owner to ensure that we explored and delivered designs that aligned with the agreed upon strategy as well as met feasibility for the desired launch date. Regular stand-ups, iteration demos, and client presentations to executive leadership ensured a correct course throughout the programs lifecycle.

Iteration & Validation

SKETCHES

Working with the strategy partner (TLG), it was decided that a universal point system would be utilized to provide a method of giving back to Ford’s customers. This point system would incentivize customers to bring their vehicles to Ford dealerships for maintenance and repair services. The first step was to create a survey and wireframes for the preliminary design that included point total displays and ways to spend points. ​

A MAJOR HURDLE

A separation in funding methods meant that in order to get a single point system set up, Ford would need to get buy-off from 3,000+ dealerships. Our Ford leadership informed us that this would be an extremely tough sell and we would mostly likely have two separate point types.

WIREFRAMES

Working with creative and development partners, we explored designs that would engage and lead the customer to reward opportunities. The point total needed to be prominent and easily understood, and the earning and redeeming of points was pivotal to the program. Personalization was a major factor from both a strategic and business perspective. Through the use of Adobe Target, we settled on the horizontal cards that could display and adapt to user behavior.

USER TESTING

A testing script and clickable InVision prototype were created for testing purposes. Two separate tests were run. One was to make sure users understood the flow of the page and were able to complete tasks that would be completed while using the program. The other was to make sure the user understood the display of points using different display options. Learnings from the latter showed us that users EXPECTED a single point system.

THE BIG WIN

Ford took the learnings from user testing and presented them at a dealership conference to encourage dealership buy-in to an updated funding system for the program. During the conference, over 2000 of the dealerships had already agreed to the change and the rest eventually followed suit.
"Our old program worked, but it didn't have the reach, flexibility and engagement from our brand to make it successful."
​Jason Sprawka, Ford's director of U.S. customer experience

New Program & Design

This system was vastly different than the original rewards program. Customers would now spend points rather than “dealership dollars”, and those points could be used at any dealership rather than tied to a specific one. ​

HELPING CUSTOMERS

We knew the migration would need some explanation to help put the customers at ease. They weren’t losing their dealership dollars, those dollars were just being converted. To help ease this process, we provided an extensive FAQ explaining the migration and incorporated two pages to visually show the best ways to earn and redeem the points. I also recommended including links to the FAQs throughout the experience and also in program announcement emails to get ahead of the incoming questions.