Providing borrowers with more pricing certainty within the booking funnel.
how pricing works when borrowing a car:
Traditional car rental companies will typically charge the borrower a flat fee for the day with unlimited kilometres included, with the expectation that the borrower refuels the car at the end of their trip at their own expense.
However, Uber Carshare’s pricing structure varies considerably as the borrower pays for their trip in two parts: at checkout when the booking is made (pre-trip costs), and after their trip ends (post-trip costs).
user testing & feedback related to the existing pricing structure
There were known friction points when it came to borrowers interpreting trip pricing, and these stemmed primarily from how pricing is displayed when there are no dates applied - referred to as the “from” pricing.
When no dates are applied, the “from” pricing gives the impression to borrowers that the Hyundai Kona would be $8 for one hour of hire, or $29 for one day inclusive of fees.
However, all trips incur a booking fee and mandatory Basic Cover, which is generally calculated at 10% of the time costs.
When factoring in these additional costs:
1 hour hire jumps from the advertised $8.00 to $15.79 (+97% increase)
1 day hire jumps from the advertised $29.00 to $38.89 (+34% increase)
I conducted interviews predominantly with users who had not borrowed a car from Uber Carshare, and unsurprisingly the sentiment was negative in regards to how pricing is displayed when there are no dates applied.
What about when there are dates applied to a search?
When dates are applied to a search, the price shown is inclusive of:
Time costs
Booking fee
Basic Cover
With the same group of users, I asked them to compare the search experience when there are dates applied vs. when dates are not applied. The overall sentiment was the user journey of having to apply dates was familiar to them, pricing was clearer, and ultimately users had more confidence to book.
the challenge:
If pricing is less transparent when there are no dates applied, How might we ensure dates are applied to each search?
exploring options to apply dates to all searches
The simplest approach to ensuring dates were applied to each search, was to remove the option for borrowers to skip dates. I also proposed changes such as rounding up prices to the nearest dollar, and remove ‘incl. fuel and fees’ to reduce the cognitive load on the user.
Based on user data, it was discovered that 75% of borrowers already searched with dates applied, so this approach was viewed as a relatively low risk solution.
The removal of allowing borrowers to skip dates would also result in a more linear flow from search to checkout.
There was feedback from internal stakeholders that removing the ability to “skip dates” would be a significant departure from the Uber Carshare search experience, as this had been a search option for the last 10 years.
I explored an alternative to mandatory dates, one that would still give the option for users to “skip dates” but doing so would apply a 3 hour hire period based on each car’s next availability. The choice to apply a trip duration of 3 hours was based on user data of a typical trip length, and the concept was inspired by Airbnb’s approach - where a trip period is still applied to all search results even if the user decides not to enter dates for their Airbnb trip.
After discussing this initial concept with engineering, there was concern that this proposed solution would require a significant amount of effort, and as a result the decision was made that this option would be simplified - if the borrower decided to ‘skip’ applying dates and times, then a blanket 3 hour hire period would apply not factoring in each car’s availability.
How did users respond to the search options?
New and existing borrowers were recruited for moderated user testing and presented with high fidelity prototypes for each option
Mandatory dates: the user must enter dates and times in order to progress their search
Skip dates: the user has the option to skip dates, however a 3 hour period is still applied
During user testing, the majority of users experienced pain points with the skip dates option:
When prompted what their preference was between the two versions, users overwhelmingly preferred the mandatory dates version as they felt that they had more control over the parameters being applied to a search, and they experienced less confusion when compared with the skip dates version.
what was the final result?
Based on user preference for the mandatory dates option, the decision was made to proceed with this search option. Further changes were also included in the final release by rounding prices up to the nearest dollar and removing the copy ‘incl. fuel and fees’ to provide additional clarity.
On the desktop home, additional changes were made in order to simplify the search funnel, such as removing the search banner from the web header. Removing this meant that all users to have to start a search through the main CTA, and apply dates/times to their search in order to progress. Additional UI changes on desktop home to closer align to Uber’s branding.
As of June 2024, all borrowers across Uber Carshare app and web are now required to enter dates and times in order to progress through the search funnel. Due to this simplified and streamlined search process, conversion has also increased by 4.7% on app, and 1.3% on web.