Disclaimer: This case is confidential, and its use is only cited for hiring processes.
01. The Context
TaDa Delivery de Bebidas is AB InBev's global Direct-to-Customer (DTC) business. By 2022, it was already present in 8 countries in Latin America and South Africa, with a clear expansion plan to reach 13 countries. This expansion presented interesting challenges in adapting the platforms to work in diverse contexts with significant social, economic, and cultural differences.
Although the launch between countries had little time separation, the demands of markets such as Mexico and Colombia brought great acceptance of the product and its value proposition. These markets became the spearhead for the most advanced version of the platforms in terms of features and information management. However, they also required competing with well-established delivery platforms in the region. Therefore, the need for a rewards system to incentivize users to choose TaDa's service over the competition became evident.
Another important and unique aspect of working in a global environment like AB InBev is the existence of similar product businesses and strategies that may be developing in other countries or regions. This circumstance provides the opportunity not only to learn from the results and experiences of these efforts but also to merge resources and efforts to optimize and standardize, which became one of the requirements.
Define the necessary user experience flow to launch an MVP of the loyalty program in the TaDa Delivery app.
Analyze the platforms that convert points to money and select one.
Allow existing users of the My Cooler (Mexico), Modelorama (Mexico), and Tappit (Colombia) loyalty programs to use the points accumulated in the TaDa app and continue accumulating both inside and outside the app.
Allow TaDa Delivery app users to accumulate points within the app and on the platforms corresponding to their country, such as My Cooler, Modelorama, or Tappit, and use those points on both platforms.
About the user:
I focused primarily on the user experience within the TaDa Delivery App platform, emphasizing their journey, the visibility of points within the platform, and established systems such as coupon redemption and check-out processes. I aimed to identify touchpoints and potential friction points that could disrupt the user's task completion.
The challenge was to consider users who might come from platforms like My Cooler and Tappit, who may or may not have an account on the TaDa App, and who logically would expect their accumulated points to be honored. This also involved navigating necessary but potentially challenging friction points regarding new terms and conditions for existing users across various platforms.
As Head of Product Design at TaDa, I was involved from the early stages of conversations and negotiations between countries, as these agreements would directly impact the user experience. As the representative of my area, I voiced the need to clearly visualize to the users the points in the products, find ways for points to be earned generally across the platform and not just on certain items, ensure transparency of terms and conditions, and primarily highlight the risks of overburdening users with issues that could not be resolved immediately from a business or technical standpoint. All of this was done in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams from Legal, Engineering, Marketing, and Business.
I worked closely with the team in Colombia to understand how Tappit was structured and how TaDa users would be integrated. Meanwhile, discussions about the services to manage points continued, and plans changed repeatedly, resulting in technically changing requirements but with little variability in the user experience
The Strategy
Considering that negotiations were ongoing and the project was constantly being canceled and reactivated, I set out to create a solution that would be agnostic, regardless of the service managing the points, whether points were earned generally or only for specific items, or whether it would connect to an external portal or not.
Using the basic principles of a loyalty program: earning points, storing points, and redeeming points, I designed a flow that could cover the cases discussed in the conversations. I sought support from the project's technical architect to validate the technical feasibility and developed possible versions as modules that could be added or removed as needed. This allowed me to deliver to the Product Manager a flow that could adapt to the various business circumstances that arose in Mexico and Colombia at that time.
Given that my team was small, I actively took on the most problematic projects or those requiring quick decisions in negotiations with other stakeholders. Club TaDa started as an urgent challenge and ended up slowing down, taking several pauses. As our team was already overloaded and, besides leading several projects, I was in charge of a team and four platforms, when the project's pace slowed, I became a sort of consultant, available to explain any flow or the logic behind the design when needed. Therefore, the project's status became purely informative. When the MVP was launched, it was implemented only in Colombia and was discontinued months later due to business and funding issues for the points; the version for Mexico had to wait almost another six months.
First version of Club TaDa MVP MX
There were two major changes before the iteration and subsequent launch. The first was the incorporation of my entire area into the global BEES (Beer, Environment, and Energy Self-sufficiency) team, which has a robust and mature Product Design team. As we integrated into this new ecosystem, we experienced a technology change (from VTEX to Sting), the adoption of an established Design System (HEXA), and the relaunch of the four TaDa platforms, including its app for end-users.
The second major change was the absorption of the TaDa service by the Zé Delivery team in Brazil, which involved a standardization of processes, teams, and user experiences.
Fortunately, due to the strategy I adopted in the first iteration, the flow worked with any service it connected to. This allowed creating a version with the HEXA Design System to take hours instead of months, which gave us the opportunity to explore small improvements in the new version, add notes and observations so that, when handing it over to the new Product Managers in charge of the project, they could have this legacy information available.
Although I was no longer part of the team specifically created for the Loyalty program, I continued to be present, advising and giving recommendations on the experimentation prior to the launch.
Club TaDa with improvements in HEXA components
The loyalty program was one of the first "fires" I faced as Head in my team. It led me to participate in very complex debate sessions for technical, political, and business reasons. That’s why I sought a way to be prepared to apply the least effort in the interface design part, which was possible because I could integrate into the conversations at very early stages of the project. I was able to deeply understand the issues and synthesize the general values needed, regardless of the service or technology chosen as the provider.
This motivated me even more to push for my team’s presence in the early stages of requirement formation. Even if “there was nothing to design,” I strongly insisted that my team and I be present, as this would result in more optimal and resilient experiences to changes. The goal was to stop being actors that only react and start acting as a strategic team.