Boosting Bodhi Bookings
A consultancy project to increase bookings for Bodhi Holistic Hub.
Who is Bodhi?
Bodhi Holistic Hub is a website that provides the information and tools to help you find & book the right holistic practitioner. Through a careful vetting process, practitioners are guaranteed to be certified experts, trustworthy and of quality. You can search practitioners based on health concerns, availability, suitability and location and browse through past clients' reviews or testimonials before booking.
Initial Problem
Bodhi approached us concerned with the search and navigation of their current website. They had noticed different search behaviours for two types of users and wanted to accommodate both of these users on their website to overall increase their conversion rate of bookings.
The two types of users, defined by Bodhi, were the new users (aka newbies) who were unfamiliar with holistic health practices, while the other users, the experts, were knowledgeable with holistic health practices.
Final Solution
Refer a Friend to your favourite Bodhi Practitioner!
Bodhi follower reads through an IG post about the new Referral Program.
Follows link to the new Landing Page on the Bodhi Holistic Hub website, where there is more information on the program.
Clicks the CTA button to start a referral.
CTA leads to the Bodhi User Dashboard.
Straight-away the user can share their favourite practitioner with their friends and family, in this case with the Mindful Health Explorer!
Case Study Walk-through
3-week Design Sprint in May 2023
As part of the General Assembly UX Design Immersive course.
Team: Annemarie Gad, Debora Jardim, Jayne Chong, Natalie Orsos
My Roles
User researcher
UX designer
UI designer
Deliverables
Stakeholder interview
Business analysis
Market research
User research
Lo- to Hi-fidelity prototyping
Usability testing
Project Tools
Google Analytics
FigJam
Paper & Sharpie
FigmaDesign
Zoom & Slack
Google Slides
How do Users Currently Search?
To see first hand, we did usability testing of the current website with 5 newbies and 3 expert users to observe how they search for a practitioner for their pain or concern.
"Newbies" search by concern
We noticed that the newbies searched by concern because they were not sure which type of practice they needed for their health concern.
Newbies could not find the right practitioner for themselves because they could not understand in which way the practitioners displayed as a search-result, would help their concern, as the tags for each practitioner only showed their services and not what they treated.
"Experts" search by practice
While the expert users searched by subcategories of practitioners or by practice as they knew what they needed for their health concern.
"Experts" could find a practitioner for their needs.
Research
Benchmarking for Competitors of Bodhi
How many other businesses like Bodhi exist in Australia? Can we identify gaps and opportunities within the local market? Where does and where can Bodhi sit within the market?
Bodhi has a strong, visually engaging website but we were eager to see how other competitive and comparative websites looked and felt compared to them.
We looked for common and unique features amongst direct competitors in Australia and in the USA.
Comparing features of 8 direct competitors we found that
Bodhi had all main features that other websites offered.
While Bodhi does not have an Onboarding service for new users to help navigating the holistic health practices.
Might the issue raised with the search and navigation stem from the lack of an onboarding, the wording used in the UX copy or the positioning of specific features?
Searching on Other Holistic Health Platforms
We then compared the search bars specifically for 8 direct competitors of Bodhi to understand how they assist users in searching.
2 out of 8 do not offer a direct search bar on their home page.
2 out of 6 do not offer category filtering in their search bar.
5 out of 6 allow for location searching.
2 out of 4 that offer category filtering, also offer several other types of filters.
Bodhi offers a very strong competitive search bar
with options to search by Concern, Practice and Location.
with a dropdown suggestions for both Concern and Practice.
under Practice, the options are grouped in subcategories allowing for an easier overview.
However,
the Concern dropdown does not provide subcategories, making the selection overwhelming.
What are Holistic Health Practices?
Who engages in these and why?
With little knowledge about holistic health practices we needed to become experts in the field of holistic health in just a few days so we could better understand Bodhi's current and potential users.
Holistic Practices are services that address patients' physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs in order to restore their balance and enable them to deal with their illnesses.
From secondary research we learnt that
females are the main clients of holistic health practices.
main reason to engage in holistic health practices is due to having a chronic disease.
63% of the Australian population used holistic practices, mostly massage, chirotherapy and yoga.
User Research
Opening Up the Problem Space
Through 72 online and on-the-street interviews, we gathered hundreds of insights. Out of these, 37 interviewees engaged in some form of holistic practice, 10 were holistic health practitioners, while the rest were not engaging in holistic health practices at the time.
These are the main behaviours we uncovered:
People have started seeking holistic health practices when struggling with chronic pain or illness.
People acted on recommendations from close circle testimonials.
People learn by watching concise videos on social media.
Based on these behaviours we created an archetype.
Opportunity to Build Upon Close Circle Recommendations
The majority of our users acted on recommendations from close circle testimonials.
Based on our user research insights we created an archetype to represent the main target audience for the rest of this project.
“The Mindful Health Explorer” Archetype
The "Mindful Health Explorer" (MHE) is a newbie in the holistic health space and is unfamiliar with holistic health practices besides yoga and pilates.
She wants to be treated from chronic pain but struggles to find trusted practitioners or services by herself. She relies on recommendations from her friends and family.
The "Mindful Health Explorer" needs trusted recommendations so they can find a practitioner to treat their chronic pain.
Our problem statement builds on the MHE turning to her friends and family for recommendations to find the most suitable practitioner for her chronic pain.
She finds the most trusted sources to be from her friends and family who had tried the recommended practitioner themselves.
Earliest intervention even before entering the website.
In order to visualise the current journey of the MHE and her emotions along the way, we plotted a journey map.
Referring to the main behaviours previously uncovered, specifically that people rely on trusted recommendations and their presence on social media, such as Instragram, we decided to take advantage at the early stages of the user journey.
Ideation
How can Bodhi Leverage the Need for Trusted Recommendations from Friends and Family?
With multiple rounds of Crazy-8 sketches, where we sketched 8 ideas in 8 minutes, followed by further sketches on an idea presented in the first round, we generated 80+ ideas. With dot voting we decided at each round which idea would meet the user and business goals the best.
The user goal was to find a practitioner for their chronic pain via friends and family while the business goal was to increase the conversion rate of bookings with practitioners. Meanwhile, keeping the implementation time short.
Partner Programs
Influencer Marketing
Brand Ambassador
Review & Testimonials
User Generated Content
Customer referral
Based on these needs and technical constraints, the idea that matched our requirements best was a referral program .
Would a Referral Program Integrate with the Existing Website?
To What Extent Will the Core Business Be Affected?
Having a task flow to show us how the referral program could be used by an existing Bodhi user helped us visualise the steps and the features each screen would require:
Friend of MHE sees an Instagram post about the new Referral Program and follows the link to the new Landing Page on the Bodhi Holistic Hub website, where there is more information on the program. He finds and copies the referral link and sends it to MHE.
Then MHE uses this link and arrives at Bodhi's page where she can book an appointment with a practitioner.
Task flow showing referral steps from IG to the Bodhi website.
Where Would It Sit in The Site?
We conducted a closed card sorting activity with 20 participants, in which we presented the existing categories of the existing footer of the Bodhi website along with all the items within those categories, deliberately mixed up. Additionally, we introduced a new item called "Refer a Friend". Then we asked these participants to group all the items under the 3 categories.
Interestingly, the majority of participants categorised "Refer a Friend" under the "Explore" heading of the footer navigation.
So we proposed to have the Referral program sit under this category in the sitemap.
Key Design Iterations
First Try Integrating Design into the Dashboard, Success!
Our prototyping phase began with a quick paper prototype to test the Referral Program within the Bodhi dashboard.
Users could easily find the tab to refer a friend and copied their link so we proceeded to design the rest of the flow in the next fidelity of the prototype.
Show them "Refer a Friend" Straight Away!
However at a later round of user testing we realised there was a problem with the whole user flow. The users, after being redirected from the Referral Program Landing page to the dashboard, struggled to find the referral link. Users expected to see the referral link straight after logging in.
First iteration: General dashboard screen shown after logging in.
Second iteration: "Refer a Friend" screen seen after logging in.
Are We actually Solving The Problem?
A Need for More Specific Guidance
We realised that having a referral link that sends MHE to Bodhi's home page does not solve her problem of finding the recommended practitioner for her chronic pain.
She may ask:
Where is the practitioner my friend recommended?
Our initial referral link idea was too generic.
Initial referral link lead to Bodhi's home page, requiring the MHE to search for a practitioner.
So to better guide the Mindful Health Explorer, we changed the purpose of the referral links to be able to specifically share a practitioner rather than just Bodhi`s home page.
Referring a specific practitioner to the MHE.
The MHE opens a referral link leading her to a specific practitioner's page.
As you see here, we redesigned the referral screen so that the Mindful Health Explorer would now be directed straight to the practitioner's page that her friend recommended.
This meets her need for finding a specific practitioner for her chronic pain!
Final Solution
Refer a Friend to your favourite Bodhi Practitioner!
Bodhi follower reads through an IG post about the new Referral Program.
Follows link to the new Landing Page on the Bodhi Holistic Hub website, where there is more information on the program.
Clicks the CTA button to start a referral.
CTA leads to the Bodhi User Dashboard.
Straight-away the user can share their favourite practitioner with their friends and family, in this case with the Mindful Health Explorer!
The most common incentives we saw through comparing different referral programs were money incentives given to both referring users and receivers.
Therefore we also chose to include a $20-$20 money incentive in our prototype. Providing a money incentive is easier to track in the users dashboard.
However, the incentives are up to Bodhi to decide based on their opportunities.
Incentives can be many different alternatives such as percentage discount, physical merchandise giveaways, giving access to exclusive educational content or events etc.
The Value to the User
Bodhi members can easily share their favourite practitioners with their friends and family through their dashboard.
Bodhi members are encouraged to share their favourite practitioners as they enjoy incentives .
The Mindful Health Explorer is guided to a specific practitioner for her chronic pain through a trusted recommendation from a friend or family member.
The Value to Bodhi
The Bodhi Referral Program would...
increase conversion rate
New users are more likely to book because of a trusted recommendation and as they are directed to a specific practitioner without the need to search.
widen user base
New users, attracted by cost reduction incentives, are motivated to also refer friends and family themselves to maintain lower booking prices.
Leading to a wider user base through trusted recommendations
increase customer loyalty
Users are incentivised to continue booking exclusively through the Bodhi website. By accumulating credits, users are encouraged to avoid booking through practitioners' other channels like their personal websites, Instagram accounts, or other third-party platforms.
Measuring the Success
To measure the success of the program these metrics could be set up:
Base Metrics
Number of sign-ups
Number of first time bookings
Referral Program Metrics
Number of referrals shared
Number of referred visitors
Number of referred sign-ups
Number of first time bookings by referred users
Reflections
What I learnt throughout the 3 weeks?
Interviewing does get a bit easier with practice! People are so lovely, why is approaching them initially nerve-wracking?!
Gathering deep and meaningful insights and grouping them is challenging but rewarding
Holistic health practices are utilised more than I thought! Hope people find the practitioner they need on Bodhi Holistic Hub