Amazon Associate Engagement

How might we create an experience that empowers customer service associates to control their performance while reducing burden for their managers?

Old experience
Gift recipients have no way of knowing when a package is arriving unless they receive a heads-up from the purchaser. This can lead to unattended deliveries which result in package theft or packages sitting on porches for days before anyone realizes it’s there. Additionally, once the gift is delivered, the recipient has no way of adding it to their account.

Opportunity
Gifts have a higher defect rate for first time delivery failures, order related contact rates and ‘delivered not received’ concessions rates. We expect $5.1MM in cost savings by extending tracking and delivery capabilities to gift recipients. There is also an opportunity drive incremental engagement with Amazon as gift recipients engage with their notifications and track their package.

Creating an Immersion Doc

Given the tight timeline for this project, we were not able to do new generative research around this new concept of gift giving on Amazon. I decided to create an immersion doc that pulled data, anecdotes, and insights from multiple internal sources as well as information available via literature, articles to help steer initial activities and decisions.

Brainstorming the Journey Map

I decided a journey map early on would be the best way to drive the vision and overall experience going forward. I started by identifying the main touch points that gift purchasers and gift recipients would encounter across the purchase, tracking, and delivery timeline.

Refining the Journey Map

Because the gift tracking experience spans multiple features and experiences, each with their own Product Manager and Designer, I led a workshop to get their insights, ideas, and thoughts on what we might be missing. I printed out large, more refined version of the journey map and asked stakeholders to take post-it notes, write down any ideas, concerns, feedback, and stick them to all areas on the journey map that apply.

Outcome
The workshop was a success. We were able to identify over 15 key features and 10 new ideas for the gift delivery experience.

Key features identified

• Trigger the first notification to the gift recipient at the time of shipment: Provides advance notice to the recipient that something is coming. In addition it's a better experience when the recipient knows that something is definitely on the way so they have something to look forward to vs. notifying them too early, immediately after the order is placed when there’s a chance the order may fail.

• We're optimizing for the use case when the recipient lives in a different household to the sender: on average 65% of the time the shipping address is different to the billing address.

• If we successfully match the recipient with their Amazon CID, we will automatically populate the gift item in their Order History: this optimizes for extending benefits to the majority of gift recipients so that no manual effort is required to add the item to their Order History. For customers not comfortable with the item showing up they will be given an option to hide or remove it from their account.

• The sender's name when exposed to the gift recipient will be the name that the sender choose to identify with during checkout: to respect the wishes of the sender, the name we will show to the recipient will be the name the sender added during the check out process. This means it could be different to the account name.

• Both the recipient and sender can add delivery instructions (when the address is not confidential): to optimize for First Time Delivery success we think it's beneficial that both the sender and recipient can provide inputs to the address or delivery given that both parties will be invested in ensuring the package is successfully delivered.

• Recipient- updated delivery instructions such as access codes will never be shared back with the sender: for security and privacy reasons we will never share back to the sender delivery instruction updates made by the recipient.

• Rescheduling or cancelling the in-transit delivery will only be available to the recipient: as the package is coming to the recipient's address they will be best informed with regards to their availability. Additionally, as we've already notified the gift recipient that something is coming, this would be a strange experience for the sender to suddenly cancel the gift delivery.

• Delivery feedback form will only be available to the recipient: as the recipient is the customer experiencing the delivery.

• Chatting with the delivery driver will only be available to the recipient: as the recipient is the customer experiencing the delivery.

• 'Unboxing' can only occur when the package is delivered: this is to avoid ruining the surprise before the package has arrived.

• The Gift Recipient will not see an Order Details page: instead they will have access to the gift receipt from the Product Owner page.

• The gift receipt will only be accessible to the gift recipient until the package is delivered and 'unboxed': this is to avoid unwittingly ruining the surprise before the recipient has had a chance to physically 'unbox' the package.

• The gift message will not be revealed to the recipient until the package is delivered and has digitally 'unboxed' the item: this is to avoid unwittingly ruining the surprise as the gift message may include hints about the item purchased before the customer has had a chance to open the physical package.

• We are transparent to the Sender about what the Gift Recipient sees or is notified about: we provide helpful reminders through the post purchase experience so that the sender understands when we have notified the recipient about the gift delivery.

• We protect the privacy of the Gift Recipient: if the recipient chooses to return the delivered gift item, we will not notify the sender.

New ideas generated
The session also resulted in 10 new ideas to further enhance the experience.

• Gift options: allow the sender to add the email address or phone number of the recipient from the tracking page if they didn't add it during check out

• Gift options: promote adding gift wrap post purchase if the sender didn't add it during checkout.

• Gift options: sender can select from different digital gift wrap options which the Sender will see and can 'unwrap' when delivered

• Gift options: sender can attach a video or audio file along with the digital gift message

• Gift options: sender can upload their own graphics to be used for the digital gift wrap (personalize and delight)

• “Augmented reality” to decorate the brown Amazon box with sender's selected gift wrap for the photo of the delivery

• Recipient - the gift item is automatically added to their orders when the recipient taps into the tracking experience

• Gift filters: 'my gifts', 'gift again' as filters in the Order History page to quickly find received or sent gifts

• Gift inspiration: show other items that will go well with the received gift

• Group gift buying : allow customers to buy gifts as a group and split the cost

Setting the vision

Using the journey map and all the idea generated from the previous session, I created a shared document to collaboratively craft our story for the gift delivery experience vision. I worked with my Product and Engineer partners to create an end-to-end story that includes the gift purchaser and gift recipient.

Testing the End-to-end Experience

To make sure we were headed in the right direction, I worked with our research team to set up a UserTesting.com study to get customer insights around comprehension, usability, and sentiment for this gift giving and gift tracking experience. We tested with 12 participants, including a pilot.

The test was set up to allow participants to play the role of the gift sender/purchaser followed by going through the gift recipient experience.

High level findings

• While participants found the share gift tracking feature useful, some thought it could ruin the surprise for the recipient

• Some participants believed sending a copy of the digital gift receipt when the gift is delivered to the recipient could ruin the surprise for the recipient

• Most participants liked that the gift item was automatically added to their account when they tapped through to the tracking experience

• Most participants liked seeing a photo of the delivery for the gift item

• Most participants liked being able to track a gift item they were receiving and having access to delivery controls such as ‘update delivery instructions’ and ‘reschedule delivery’

Defining Tenets

Using what we’ve learned from customers and all the ideas, suggestions, and feedback we’ve gotten so far, I led a series of quick working sessions with my Product partner to define tenets for the gift delivery experience.

Final tenets

1. We prioritize the gift sender during checkout and optimize for both sender and recipient post-purchase. Since the gift giver is making the purchase decision, they are in control of how and if we communicate with the recipient about their gift.

2. We maintain the surprise of what’s in the box until delivery. We build customer trust by protecting the surprise of what item is being gifted, not necessarily that a gift has been purchased.

3. Give visibility and control to the gift recipient. If the gift giver wants to notify the recipient about their gift, the recipient should be able to track and manage their order in the same way they do for items they purchase.

4. Create a delightful gifting experience. We understand that gifting is a special interaction between the gift giver and recipient. We celebrate when the gift is delivered and look for opportunities to make it delightful and fun throughout the experience.

5. Maximize coverage of customer benefits while protecting customer privacy. We pursue opportunities to extend product ownership benefits to as many customers but never at the expense of breaking customer trust or privacy.

Finalizing the Vision and Presenting to Leadership

Using the customer insights from the study and our design tenets, I refined the end-to-end experience to be used as a presentation to three VPs (two VPs in my org and the VP in the Retail Shopping org).

The vision presentation was a success and we received the green-light from all three VPs to move forward with overall experience as well as the ideas presented within the vision.

Appendix items - Other ideas presented for unboxing animations

Defining the MLP

To meet the target of a late October or early November launch (in time the holiday, peak season), we needed to define a MLP (minimal lovable product). I proposed leveraging another feature I was leading, which would give customers the ability to share tracking information and augmenting it with gift elements and language.

I led a couple of small brainstorming sessions with my product partners to iterate on the MLP ideas. During these sessions, we considered how we would make customers aware of the new gift delivery tracking/sharing feature, how and when we would communicate to gift recipients that tracking is available, how these details change based on the gift purchasers preferences, and the language that would make the overall experience clear to all parties.

MLP Refining and Testing

I took the sketches and notes from the brainstorming sessions and turned them into more refined designs. After a couple of rounds of design feedback and some refinement, I created prototypes and worked with our researcher to test the end-to-end experience with customers.

Nine Amazon retail customers from the Seattle, WA area participated in a moderated usability study on mobile device that ran from September 9 to September 11, 2019. Participants were exposed to five scenarios from the perspective of a gift giver and gift recipient that included: 1) reviewing gift options, 2) sharing gift tracking, 3) receiving gift tracking, 4) tracking the gift delivery, and 5) post-delivery gift options.

Customer quotes
”I like it. It will be helpful to keep packages from being stolen.”
”I like how easy it is to share the tracking info without ruining the surprise factor.”
”It’s great being able to send the digital receipt after the recipient has received the gift.”
”I liked the gift bag and gift receipt via email options. It makes the gift a little more special .”
”I like the idea of sending a gift, being able to pick all the options and having shipping oversight .”

What we launched

What we Accomplished

Cost Reduction Savings
Measured over a 14 day period (11/15-11/28), we estimate $3.6M in annualized cost savings across concessions (all carriers) and contacts (all carriers). These savings were calculated by comparing the improved First time delivery failure, contact and concession rates for shipments when tracking is shared in the treatment group (gift share) compared to shipments that have tracking shared in the control group (regular share).

Breakdown of Cost Savings

• Concessions: $3.1M in cost savings

• Contacts: $344.7K in cost savings

• First time delivery failure: $117.8K

Key learnings
Gift Share concessions are about 32% lower than standard share concessions due to a reduction in almost all concession reasons, but especially these reasons:

• ‘Not received deliveries’ concessions were reduced by 36%

• ‘Missed estimated delivery date’ concession were reduced by 31%

• ‘Undeliverable address’ concessions were reduced by 15%