Reflection – Learning Launches in Car Rental industry

Challenge

I work with the car rental industry and our challenge was to increase ancillary revenue through cross  selling and upselling of products across different channels. Products could range from GPS, Mobile  Wi-Fi, Insurance & Cover Packages, Satellite Radio etc, and the idea was to sell them to customers by  identifying their unspoken need at times. The project scope includes the marketing, revenue  management and IT teams as they need to come together to address this challenge. The peak  season for car rental industry is during summer when people go on vacations and hence this needed  to be addressed within the next 3 - 6 months before summer begins.

Selection

We came up with a list of assumptions to address this challenge but the order of attack needed to be  in phases as some were expensive and time consuming to test. As learning launch is a tool to quickly  test an idea and prototype, we decided to move forward with it and test the assumption first which  was easy, quick and relatively prudent.

Application

As mentioned, for our first learning launch we decided to start from a basic assumption i.e., Cross  selling of GPS devices in the current technology era which is already being ruled by phones loaded  with Google/Apple Maps. Members from IT, Marketing and Revenue Management teams were  grouped together into small PODS and these PODS held working sessions amongst themselves to  test this assumption. The product was then developed & put into display across different channels  for a select group of locations to get insights into customer behaviour & buying patterns towards  ancillaries, within a span of 2 weeks.

For our second learning launch, we decided to bundle some ancillaries i.e., GPS, Insurances, Wi-Fi  and offer it to the customer as a package deal. Yet another POD was tasked to brainstorm and test  this assumption, which was again showcased to customers within a couple of weeks.

In this fashion, every POD was able to consecutively test an assumption using the learning launch  tool and decide quickly on whether to pivot or trash the idea thereby enabling traction.

Insight

Using this learning launch tool, POD’s were able to identify different assumptions and developed  products to test them out individually. This enabled to arrive quickly at the decision of whether to  pivot or trash the assumption. Based on survey feedback received from customers with every  assumption, we were able to improvise and make appropriate changes to the next one. This way, we  were able to learn quickly in the event of a fast failure. Eventually during the complete rollout, we  were able to outline and offer only revenue generating options to the customer thereby improving  satisfaction and net promotor scores.

Approach

We felt that learning launch approach worked best for us as we were to see some early tangible  quick wins. Every launch was a learning and helped us improvise on the next one by incorporating  the feedback. Also having the cross functional folks in PODS, helped us to take quick decisions across  teams which otherwise would have been a blocker.

