One Way Rental Cars: The Simplest Solution to a Deceptively Complex Problem

Overview

I had the privilege of working on several critical projects during my time at Upside Business Travel. For rental cars, users needed to be able to pick up a car at one location and drop it off at another location any where in the country. This posed unique challenges that didn’t exist with round-trip travel and we suspected that technical limitations would require different approaches on the backend depending on whether the user was start with an airport or an off-airport location. This created some unique challenges in order to ensure a seamless experience for the user.

My Role

I was the lead designer for this project and collaborated closely with the Lead Engineer. Project Manager and Quality Engineer on discovery, strategy, and execution.

The Process

Early Research

We knew from research done prior to my arrival that one-way rental cars was a major ask from users. We did some competitive analysis to understand how other companies were tackling this issue and found that while most competitors offered the ability to book a one-way rental car, most had different approaches on how to handle the drop off aspect. We determined that part of our customers need was to be able to select their drop off location rather than being locked in to a preset drop off point. This was determined from interviews with clients where they discussed pain points with being forced to drop off a car in a location that was no where near where they were going.

Personas

When it comes to the shopping side of business travel products there are basically two types of users. Ones that book travel for themselves and ones that book travel for others. Sometimes their needs are very different, but often they have similar needs. In this case, there needs were closely aligned. Upside had already done considerable work on personas based on the broader shopping journey. I was able to use those personas and adapt them to the more specific case of one-way rental car shopping.

Initial Approach

Due to technological hurdles, we devised that we would need to develop multiple paths that the users shopping experience would take depending on how they started their search. We also identified a few edge cases that required special consideration. However, a shift in team structure allowed us to discover several places where we not being as streamlined as we could be with our solutions.

The Conclusion

Modifications

Ultimately our technology was capable of delivering the users needs using two paths instead of the previous four paths that we thought were needed. We successfully provided the key ability to select the drop off location and even allowed the additional benefit to change that drop of location at any time post booking, which helped travel arrangers (those who book travel for others) have added flexibility for their travelers busy and unpredictable schedules.