Design Sprint Workshop

I tested the our current app with 12 people who bowl 1-6 times per year. I collected enough feedback to confirm a hypothesis.

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Conclusions

• People didn't feel comfortable adding a credit card to an app they didn't trust.
• It wasn't clear what the point/value of the app was.
• 33% of participants were not interested in betting on their own bowling experience.
• User perceptions of the bowling experience vary, from a low-cost weekend activity to a higher-priced, modern experience.
• Users would appreciate earning points or rewards based on performance.

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Final Conclusions

Since all of the  participants were interested in winning rewards but only 33% of users would want to bet money on a game of bowling it became obvious that the app should develop features that offer savings through rewards and services (especially food and beverage rewards). Additionally if we shipped a version without betting we could increase our audience to minors as well. By offering perks that are not available to non-members, loyalty programs could create a sense of exclusivity that encourages customers to return to a brand.

Furthermore, it was clear that we needed to explain the value prop of the app to users and some of the basics tasks of entering a challenge and connecting to a lane needed clear copy and instructions.

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Ideation

The team met and determined that the MoneyBowl app will continue to grow into the single in-center customer engagement app to enhance the bowling experience while delivering revenue growth, visits per year, per visit duration (games and food) and higher customer satisfaction.

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Core Strategies

• Focus on increasing visits per year to 3 by a robust and personalized push notification campaign
• Focus on offering fun and engaging Challenges and non-monetary rewards like exclusive perks and food.
• Focus on alignment with marketing and ops teams to deliver a unified message and experience
• Creating a Points Play Economy so build brand loyalty and repeat visits.

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We tasked our data scientist to calculate a points system by looking at the cost of items and the average amount spent during a visit to one of our locations. We also focused on items that have no initial cost like: shoe rentals, free bowling lanes, and the ability to skip the line for lane reservations.

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Design + Build

Collaboratively, we met and identified the core features that would tackle these challenges. They included:

• Introduce the "Points Play" feature for users to earn points by spending, entering, and winning challenges.
• Enable point redemption for items such as food, rental shoes, reservations, and more.
• Developed a comprehensive homepage displaying bowling statistics, app value propositions, and marketing events.
• Update the visual appeal of the app
• Launch a version of the app suitable for minors by removing betting features.
• Help set up context on the core app features. Because many users didn’t know what the app was about or next steps.

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The Homepage

During user interview we discovered that users would love to see stats on their games and we needed a place not only to give more context to the user but also give important and timely messages about promos, specials, and new features. Rather than having a user start with a challenges I added a homepage where you be reminded of the value props of the app every time you log on.

Challenges

The next challenge was to create engaging non-monetary challenges that would engage our users. We received feedback that some of our current challenges were too difficult so we focused on a series of challenges that were give a larger payout and easy to obtain. Hooking users with a easy to get reward on the 1st install was essential to get dedicated users. I also took the time to update the challenge art.

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Rewards

Our research highlighted a preference for bowling-related rewards, particularly those that help reduce users' bills. To ensure consistency across all Bowlero locations, we conducted a comprehensive inventory of available food, arcade options, and features, selecting items common to all venues. Our priority was to offer rewards with minimal or no cost to the company.

Upon accumulating sufficient points, users can easily redeem them for rewards. We provide a barcode for redemption, allowing seamless integration with each location's POS system. To encourage prompt visits, we've included an expiration date.

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Results

In a single year, we went from delivering an app where users could bet against friends while bowling to a full fledged loyalty app that not only proven to bring customers back into the door through successful gamification and targeted push notifications. We also shipped many behind the scene features like Improved onboarding, Refer a friend feature, a Reward widget, Improved Stats on the homepage, Multi-game challenges, and specialized retargeting push campaign.

• The MoneyBowl app went from 0 to 355k users in less than a year.
• After “Points Play” feature was rolled out app churn was reduced by 19%.
• We also created and maintained comprehensive design system in Figma that streamlined design and production.
• Retargeting push campaigns, supported by location data, effectively reengaged disengaged users and brought them back to Bowlero's locations.
• We also were sure to address usability concerns by implementing font scaling across the app. This was especially important because many locations were low light conditions.

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“Awesome app!! As someone who takes bowling seriously, this app makes it easy to keep track of my scores and I love how I can win rewards while playing.  Bowling's a total win-win for me now!”

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-MONEYBOWL USER

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