Product Brief: Punchcard System
Recently, I did a great product challenge where I had to create a brief for a new punchcard feature that would be implemented into an existing app platform. A product brief is a general document that provides the overall and high level concept (i.e. the 'why') behind a feature. Keep in mind that this brief is not real and contains fictitious data - it is simply an exercise where I wanted to practice my process for a product feature :).
1. PROBLEM
1.1 Background
Since 2000, Company ABC has been a successful global leader in the landscape of digital rewards program with its all-in-one platform. With millions of merchants using it, they can easily launch customizable points, referrals and VIP programs to incentivize their customers to become brand loyalists. As a result, sales are boosted and customer retention has increased for these merchants’ ecommerce stores.
Recently, the team at ABC has noticed a surge of feedback and requests from multiple merchants for a punchcard system. In order to address this request, the ABC team has decided to first identify the merchant’s source problem, followed by verifying if it is valid and ensuring that the punchard system is the right solution for this product gap. During this problem analysis, the ABC team will be able to understand the following:
- What are the merchant’s primary pain points and unmet needs?
- Is this problem a recurring issue or a ‘one-time’ one?
- What is the size of the target market for this problem?
- What are the possible solutions and features that would help to alleviate this problem?
To execute this analysis, the team would gather detailed data from various sources, such as support calls and analytics, to better understand this problem. Then, the team would conduct several elicitation techniques, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations with the merchants and their customers to comprehend their unmet needs and to validate the problem. This process will formulate the basis of building the best solution and features in the ABC app for the merchants.
1.2 Analysis
Due to the recent global pandemic, numerous merchants have either added or converted their physical stores into an online one in order to keep their business going. Other merchants have started their own ecommerce stores to generate more income as a result of losing their employment. Among the merchants who are requesting the punchcard system, there are two largest types of users and their needs have been identified:
- Many of these merchants also have the traditional physical punchcard in action at their brick-and-mortar locations (e.g. coffee shops), but now want to eliminate it and convert to a digital punchcard system due to the following pain points:
- It is expensive to print physical punchcards. This causes an increase in the costs for the merchant.
- It is bulky for the merchant’s customers to carry around and they easily lose the punchcard. This causes low customer retention.
- It is hard for the merchant to track the number of punchcards given out to their customers and how many ‘punches’ they got to date. This causes ineffective business operations for the merchant.
- It is hard to be flexible in the physical punchcard system (e.g. update to new brand logo and colors). This also causes ineffective business operations for the merchant.
- Other merchants have an ecommerce store with multiple vertical / type of product to sell (e.g. t-shirts) and prefer to have a reward program based on a specific vertical / products rather than order amount.
During this analysis of this problem, the ABC team has found that the addressable size of this target market to be a magnitude and a recurring one. As well, looking at the current database from ABC app, the following valuable information has been extracted to demonstrate that these merchants may want a punchcard system in the ABC app:
- 45% of merchants have multiple product verticals
- These merchants have an existing average order value of greater than $25 and over 100 customers
The ABC team also reached out via a survey to their existing merchants and asked if they have a physical punchcard system and if they would convert to a digital one. Over 65% of these merchants said they would.
2. SOLUTION
2.1 Features
To address this problem, the ABC team has proposed a digital punchcard system with valuable features as the solution in the ABC app that will fuel the success of these merchants. This digital punchcard system is a type of loyalty card that replicates the traditional paper punch or stamp card, such as the "Buy X Get 1 Free" style loyalty card. For instance, if a customer buys 5 t-shirts from an ecommerce store, he/she will receive a free t-shirt on their next order. This punchcard system will encourage the merchant’s customers to frequently purchase a product in order to receive a reward. This punchcard system will be ‘side by side’ to the ABC app’s main rewards program, allowing merchants to choose the best program suited to their needs.
The major features of this punchcard system in the ABC app:
- Merchant can customize the ‘look and feel’ (e.g. upload an icon image for the punches or select colors) of the punchcard to match with the brand of the business.
- Merchant can select the type of punches (i.e. based on product vertical, order amount or visit).
- Merchant can determine what is the reward (e.g. free item, store discount) once all the punches have been collected.
- Merchant can set an expiry date for this system to motivate customers to buy more frequently in a short period.
- Merchant can set up a reminder to send their customers when the expiry date is ending soon to encourage customers to make a purchase before they lose their punches and get their reward.
- Merchant can set up a new punch promotion (e.g. featured product gets 2 punches) to get customers to buy this specified product.
- Merchant can set up bonus punches for birthdays, signups and social media likes to make the customers feel special.
- Merchant can create a tier-based punchcard system based on the number of completed punches (e.g. Starter, Advanced, VIP). Merchant can customize the multiple tiers to collect punches in different ways for their purchases.
- Merchant can send email notifications about any punch promotions to keep customers up-to-date about this rewards system.
- Merchant can follow up (e.g. with star ratings or open-ended questions) after each punch to gather customer’s feedback or product reviews.
- Merchants can track monitor metrics related to punchcard system and their customer’s interaction with it (e.g. number of punchcards created by customers, number of drop-off after 1 punch).
- Merchant can be alerted of any frauds attempted externally.
- Merchant can migrate from the old digital punchcard system to ABC's new one.
The priority of these features will be based on various factors, such as highest merchant value, development effort, degree of risks, etc. Two prioritization techniques to be used are MoSCoW and ranking.
The key benefits of this punchcard solution for ABC are found in Table 2.1.1.
Table 2.1.1: Benefits of the punchcard system.
|
Benefit |
Description |
|
Personalization |
Merchants will be able to customize the punchcard system to match their business’ brand. |
|
Cost Efficiency |
By eliminating the physical punchcard system and converting to the digital ones, merchants will save costs for their business. |
|
Easy to Use |
Merchants will easily set up this punchcard system within minutes. |
|
Increase Revenues |
Customers will make frequent purchases to get rewarded. |
|
Increase Customer LTV |
Customer retention will increase due to repeat purchases. |
|
Increase Business Awareness |
Customers will promote to others about this reward system, creating more awareness for the merchant’s business. |
|
High Security |
The punchcard system will have best security practices to prevent any frauds. |
|
Real-Time Data Tracking |
Merchants will be able to track real-time their customer’s interactions with the punchcard system due to its in-depth analytics. |
2.2 Assumptions, Constraints and Risks
For this punchcard system, several assumptions, constraints and risks have been identified in the Table 2.2.1.
Table 2.2.1: Assumptions, risks, and constraints for punchcard system.
|
Type |
Description |
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Assumptions |
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Constraints |
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Risks |
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2.3 Validation
A significant aspect for the ABC team is to continuously validate the problem and solution to ensure that the right product features are built for their target market. In order to validate this solution, the team will continuously engage their users throughout the product development cycle with the following touchpoints:
- UX Usability Testing: Once the specs have been defined and a prototype has been designed, the team will evaluate the solution in a UX usability session. It allows the ABC team to determine if the users are having a positive experience while using the features and if their problem has been rightly solved in the proposed solution. Once approved, this prototype will be the foundation of the product development by the technical team.
- User Acceptance Testing and/or Beta Testing: After the technical team has developed and tested the punchcard system, it will be tested by a group of users in an user acceptance and/or beta testing phase. This testing will help to identify any potential bugs and problems faced by users.
- Post-Launch Evaluation: After the launch of the punchcard system, the ABC team will monitor user’s interaction, gather feedback (via support calls and analytics) and measure performance (e.g. number of unique new/existing merchants using the feature, frequency that merchants use the feature) to ensure that the new feature has properly addressed the user’s challenge. The Merchant Success team would help the merchants (e.g. set up their punchcard system), create documentations (e.g. FAQs) and host webinars/demo sessions to ensure that the feature would truly benefit their business.
3. EXECUTION
3.1 Objectives
As seen in Table 3.1.1, establishing high level objectives and success metrics provides ABC team targets to achieve for the punchcard system.
Table 3.1.1: Objectives and success metrics for the punchcard system.
|
Area |
Objective |
Success Metrics |
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Business Operations |
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Product Delivery |
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User Engagement |
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3.2 Release Plan
For the punchcard system, a release plan with milestones and estimated timelines has been created, as illustrated in Table 3.2.1.
Table 3.2.1: Release plan for the punchcard system.
|
Phase |
Deliverables |
|
Product Discovery (Milestone 1 at the end of December 2020) |
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Product Development (Milestone 2 at the end of February 2021) |
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Product Delivery (Milestone 3 at the end of April 2021) |
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#productbrief #feature #punchcard