Create flexibility with a new multi-card wallet
Until now, Zipcar offered only single-card payments. Our team modernized the payment experience by introducing a multi-card wallet, complete with backup payment options in case of failed transactions.
Outcome
- Currently reducing member debt from failed charges, recovering $50k monthly.
- Offered independence to members, resolving card issues on their own.
- Significantly reduced the need to reach out to customer service on this topic.
Team
- Lead UX Designer (Myself)
- Product Manager
- UX Design Manager
- App and Web Engineering Teams
We need to provide more modern payment
The single-card system wasn't meeting our members' needs. Many struggled with updating their cards and ran into bugs, while we faced annual losses around $300k from failed post-trip charges alone.
“The app and their website are immensely buggy. It’s not possible to update credit card details as the app hangs up once my bank has confirmed the new transaction. The Website also doesn’t allow one to sign in from a mobile phone. The log-in page is non-responsive.”
“Customer service is non-existent. When their system wouldn’t let me update or change my credit card information, their solution was to irrevocable cancel my account completely. They will not identify what activity on my credit card caused this.”
Where will it live in app?
Payment management used to only live on member web. Below, we introduced Wallet to the app experience.
How to change existing member web?
While we initially considered keeping payment tools where it was on the Overview page, we decided to create a new Wallet page. This supports a consistent experience between app and web.
Encourage backup payments when adding more cards
This feature allows failed payments to be re-tried with other cards, preventing future issues and interruptions.
Changing cards mid-checkout
Flexible checkout helps the member complete their booking without interruption.
Including digital wallets in checkout
We’ve added Apple Pay and Google Pay to streamline booking, making it faster and easier for members to pay.
How do cost breakdowns show multiple cards?
Account owners can change their payment method while driver-only members cannot, resulting in different views below.
How to warn about card expiration
We supplemented app and web with email notifications warning account owners about expiration and how to resolve it.
How to communicate wallet information to all drivers
Only account owners have wallets. Driver-only members bill to the account. Expired cards still block bookings and extensions for all drivers and must be communicated.
Deciding against a feature
"Save for future bookings" was considered as a feature in addition to choosing a default card, but we ultimately felt it would create more confusion, so we discarded it.
Moving on to wider implementation
This project laid the foundations of a new payments hub, backup payments, and flexible checkout. Moving forward, our goal is to allow the change payment feature everywhere transactions are offered.
Change payment in member facing transactions
In a future phase, flexible checkout will be available when modifying and extending your trip.
Change payment in agent facing transactions
If we want to make the flexible checkout experience easy for members, we need to make it just as easy for our agents when making transactions on a member’s behalf.
What I learned during this project
- How to collaborate and problem solve with Product teams.
- Proper Engineering handoff and if/then thinking for happy and unhappy paths.
- The importance of proper documentation in Figma.
