TV Loyalty Program

Responsible for the definition of a loyalty & rewards program for a Pay TV service, from initial concept development through first prototype

First Live TV Loyalty program that rewards customer for doing what they already come to our product to do - Watch TV
Expanded to all customers in 2024
Contributed to 18% YoY viewership increase (discussed by executive leadership in 2024Q1 Earnings Call)

My role: Product Manager & user research lead, working with a designer and tech lead, on early stage concept discovery.

Clear communication of program terms drives greater perceptions of reliabilty and trustworthiness

Scoping and stakeholder engagement

Redefining trustworthiness.

When I first joined the project, the team's defined objective was "Develop a loyalty rewards program for our service that 'uses blockchain'".

I was able to open a conversation with our executive stakeholders about their goals for the project. We learned that the "blockchain requirement" had come about out of a desire to convey to customers that their reward points were safe, in a high-tech, transparent system.

At the same time, I designed a dual series of interviews & surveys with Live TV watchers - one about their experiences with loyalty rewards programs; and one about their background with blockchain. Two clear insights emerged:

For the company's primary audience (older adults), "Blockchain" does not communicate trustworthiness and transparency.
To be perceived as trustworthy, customers need to feel like they are getting what they were promised : to clearly understand what rewards they received and why. Piles of fine print, restrictions, and qualifiers break trust with the customer.

From there, I was able to work with executive stakeholders to reframe the project's requirements, focusing on their end goals (increase viewership, build our reputation as transparent and trustworthy, etc); while removing the blanket requirement to use blockchain. Greater flexibility in the technical implementation ultimately made the product a better fit for both customer and business needs.

Reframed Objectives:

>90% of users can accurately describe the rules for earning rewards points
Increase the percentage of customers who use the service for 20+ hours per month

Pilot Design

I designed the pilot program to tackle the most difficult aspect of the project first - would TV watchers engage with it enough to actually change their viewing behavior?

Designing a pilot around the most critical questions focused MVP resources on the elements that would most directly prove whether the project provided value for both customers and the business.

Usability Testing

Designed task-based usability testing with a clickable prototype to ensure usability before pilot launch
Recruited and managed participants
Usability testing led to significant increased simplification of the design

Outcomes

Our early exploration proved out the concept enough to justify assigning a full development team to build out the feature
Launched as the first pay-tv loyalty program to selected customers in 2023; performing strongly enough to expand to all customers in 2024
Contributed to a 17% YoY increase in viewership

Google Sites

Report abuse