FREENOW is a mobility service provider with the largest selection of vehicles in Europe. It is available in 16 markets and 170+ cities, and more than 56 million users are choosing from the wide range of mobility options using just one app. FREENOW is the first mobility platform in Europe to reach Net-Zero intending to create a sustainable, urban mobility experience in every European city.
FREENOW is part of the mobility joint venture between BMW and Daimler, formed in February 2019. With total funding of $131.2M raised, the company’s majority shareholders are BMW Group and Mercedes-Benz Group AG.
In the face of growing market demands and competitive pressures, FREENOW sought to enhance its driver experience, aiming to improve user satisfaction, reduce operational costs, and increase overall revenue.
We were brought on as Interim Product Managers to fill the temporary absence of the Product Manager position due to team changes and a hiring gap. The expectation was not only to bridge this gap by running day-to-day operations smoothly but also to uncover opportunities for impactful innovations.
The Head of Product emphasized the importance of Discovery for this and we accordingly delved deep into understanding the drivers’ needs, the operational challenges, and the market dynamics.
Within days of our engagement, we integrated with FREENOW’s Driver Experience In-Trip team, rapidly understanding their structure, immediate needs, and long-term goals. Our initial deliverables focused on identifying key pain points and opportunities for impactful new initiatives.
The Google Design Sprint is a methodology for solving problems through designing, prototyping, and testing new ideas. It's essentially a five-day process aimed at helping teams answer critical business questions through rapid prototyping and feedback.
As part of our mission at FREENOW, we employed the Google Design Sprint methodology to tackle the challenge of driver retention and engagement. We identified a crucial knowledge gap among newly registered drivers - and the first week's earnings are critical habit-forming metrics for drivers' drop-off and retention rates.
Recognizing the importance of early engagement, we embarked on "Sprint 0.” In just 5 days with a lean cross-functional team, we ideated an ‘Interactive Tutorial’. The prototype was developed with speed and efficiency, moving swiftly through design and technical feasibility assessments. The Interactive Learning module was placed in the team’s roadmap for the next quarter.
During our engagement, we had experiments run consistently over every sprint. Incorporating constant experimentation was to ensure we navigate uncertainty and innovate effectively, to deliver products that truly meet user needs.
This approach not only facilitated iterative improvement, allowing us to refine features continuously but also played a crucial role in risk management by validating assumptions before full-scale implementation. Furthermore, it drove cost efficiency, by allowing us to optimize our development resources to be spent in the most impactful way.
Here are the examples of the initiatives we drove to success, with the flexible, responsive approach of continuous experimentation.
There was a passenger-facing issue, which caused the most expensive case impacting our Customer Support team. This issue was responsible for a substantial portion of support contacts, contributing to high operational expenses in terms of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) staffing costs.
In response to this, we embarked on an extensive product discovery journey. With the help of talented developers, we identified a back-end solution to intelligently validate transactions with minimal front-end user impact.
After setting the thresholds derived from research and analysis of internal data, we soft-launched the feature to a small portion of users. We then closely watched the results and refined the feature with continuous reiterations and enhancement to minimize false positives.
After a series of reiterations and optimization, we could confidently launch the feature in all markets. And in the first week of the release in one market, we have seen a 0% false positive rate and more than a 50% reduction in the cases. That is equivalent to €200K/Year cost saved per annum.
Driver cancellations were an important issue to solve, to enhance service quality and operational efficiency. Initially, we explored various strategies, which did not significantly alter cancellation behaviors - however, this provided valuable insights for subsequent initiatives and paved the way for a more targeted approach.
We implemented A/B tests in selected markets to experiment with market-specific thresholds, aiming to improve KPIs including drivers' cancellation rates. The result was it led to significant decreases in cancellation rates: an impressive 18.9% drop in Country A, 13% in Country B, and 7.3% in Country C.
After seeing the clear success, we gradually rolled out the winning variant to 100% in the selected markets and continued to launch it in more countries. According to the analysis, the improved key metrics would increase revenue by €1.2 Million per month.
At Product People, we have a wealth of experience in effectively coaching and onboarding PMs - exemplified by the success stories during our engagement with the In-Trip team.
Earlier in the mission, we had PM coaching sessions for a former Program Manager who had just become PM of the Offer Management team. We set up a dedicated Slack channel and regular 1:1 sessions for an overview of Product Management, coupled with targeted topic discussions and guidance. We created a Miro board for him to ensure he has all the information and knowledge he needs for swift onboarding and continued fast learning and growth as a PM.
Our expertise in coaching PMs is evident in onboarding our own In-Trip team’s new PM, Priscila. We meticulously compiled a comprehensive handover document, detailing recent and ongoing initiatives. Our coaching encompassed both foundational PM concepts and specialized guidance tailored to our team's work. With no PM experience before, Priscila took over the fast-paced team’s PM role in an impressively short time.
💡 Implemented Google Design Sprints leading to innovative feature ideation in only 5 days.
💡 Reduced operations costs and increased revenue projections through continuous discovery, experimentation, and strategic feature implementations.
💡 Mentored new Product Managers to effectiveness within the FREENOW team.
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