Marriott Client Community Relaunch

The opportunity

Marriott Digital Services (MDS) functions as Marriott International's in-house digital marketing agency, providing a range of services, including website development, content optimization, and digital marketing campaigns for over 4,000 Marriott hotels worldwide. MDS had an existing Client Community portal built on Salesforce where customers could purchase and manage their enrolled services but could do little else.

They approached Whereoware with a multi-year, multi-phase project to completely relaunch their site. I was the lead client-facing UX architect on the project, handling requirements gathering, research, design, the Salesforce Experience Cloud site build, front-end development, and collaboration with backend development on custom Lightning Web Components.

Due to the extensive nature of this project, I will highlight specific problems and solutions implemented for this case study instead of providing an overall narrative of the project.

user research

The project's first phase involved launching a new Help Center section for the community, a microsite where users could access how-to guides and support documents, along with a soft launch of a new brand and color palette. Impressed with the results, MDS trusted my recommendation to allocate additional budget for further discovery and user testing, which we could not do in Phase 1. I conducted a series of interviews with both Marriott leadership and platform users, ranging from seasoned "power users" to first-timers. These sessions involved gathering feedback and having users perform various tasks. The insights were presented with initial recommendations through annotated screenshots, simple wireframes, and site map diagrams.

Some of the key issues identified:

Carousel Banner Ineffectiveness
Confusing Navigation and Onboarding
Unclear Tab and Section Labels
Clunky, dated design

To address these issues and others, I designed a new dynamic homepage with a hero banner connected to four quick action cards personalized for each user. New users could add their hotels to the system, which is the first step in the enrollment process, while returning users could start directly with enrollment. All these elements could be easily updated by MDS staff on the backend. Additionally, a custom dashboard was created to provide users with a quick summary of their active projects and to-do items. The previously stagnant blog, hosted externally, was rebuilt using Salesforce CMS and prominently featured on the new homepage. Below that (not pictured) were various support integrations with the new Help Center.

“I appreciate your creativity, expertise and responsiveness throughout the project. When a change was requested or issue arose, you always stepped up to make sure it was addressed in a timely manner. Everyone on our side is very pleased with how it all turned out, from the improved design to the new features like My Stats and the News/Blog page.”

- David Pinkham, Sr. Manager, MDS

KPI Workshops

While the previous phases of the project included numerous UX and design improvements, some of these enhancements were challenging to quantify with data. The e-commerce flows, however, presented significant opportunities for strategic, data-driven refinement and continuous improvement.

To initiate this process, we conducted a comprehensive stakeholder workshop with over 20 participants. During the 90-minute session, we generated 124 sticky notes, which helped us identify three key goals and ten clear objectives.

GOALS

OBJECTIVES

Improve product awareness and understanding

Grow engagement with new products

Grow engagement with personalized recommendations

Improved clarity of billing and pricing

Maximize enrollment

Reduced abandoned carts and enrollment drop-offs

Acquisition of new users

Increased cross-selling and upselling

Increased bulk enrollments

Increase internal efficiency

Reduced need for custom and manual contracts

Reduced back-and-forth with clients during enrollment

Greater configuration and management options

Subsequent workshops focused on defining KPIs, benchmarks, and targets. These included tracking metrics such as the number of support requests, the quantity of product add-ons ordered, new leads in Salesforce, and enrollments completed internally. By establishing these metrics, we positioned ourselves for long-term engagement, enabling continuous assessment and enhancement of the entire Client Community.

solutions

I had turned MDS into UX user interview converts, so we engaged in another round of testing, this time focusing on the enrollment process. The testing involved five unique users with varying roles and levels of experience. Users were tasked with performing a mock enrollment (with assurance that any purchases would be rolled back) and provided general feedback.

When starting enrollment, the current flow launched a pop-up window where users could enter their hotel code. The products and services on offer were determined by this code. All users were familiar with this MARSHA terminology as it was used regularly in other contexts aside from the enrollment process, and none of the users had any problems with this page. However, I felt there was still room for usability improvements.

First, the entire enrollment flow was refactored into pages integrated within the context of the whole site, rather than a popup experience. Users would still start the process based on a hotel code, but the new screen would display a list of their registered hotels and allow them to add a new hotel without navigating to the hotel management page. This page was also personalized to prompt a first time user to add a hotel code if they had not done so already.

On the next screen in the original flow, users were presented with a confusing array of products and categories. While some users were familiar with the terminology, others were not.

”I don’t like the categories that they have… I really need to go in and make sure it’s the right one…”

- User

When users navigated into a category, they encountered a list of products with large blocks of text. Although some users found the descriptions clear, they were not quickly scannable, and the pricing information was confusing for many. Additionally, there was no way to get additional details on a product or share it with colleagues.

"If they could send out an email letting everybody know what the new offerings are that would be helpful.”

- User

To solve these issues, I designed a new product catalog that took inspiration from more traditional e-commerce experiences. Features included:

Numerous filter options for both the "official" categories and new topics, as well as for viewing add-ons only allowing the user to browse the catalog more efficiently on a single screen.
The ability to change the hotel code to refresh the available offerings without starting over.
A search bar for searching by product name.
Product thumbnails and rich text formatting of descriptions.
Additional product pricing details with optional context.
A "learn more" link that takes the user to a dedicated product page which featured sales brochures, videos, and a dedicated share link.
A persistent shopping cart accessible via the main navigation.

Additionally, if a product had an add-on, it was clearly indicated on the product card itself, allowing users to expand the card to see the add-on details. Logic was implemented to ensure that an add-on could not be placed in the cart unless a core product was either already in the cart or already enrolled by the user.

Previously, users had to complete complex forms for each product before reaching the checkout page, which was cumbersome, especially when purchasing multiple products. Each form required users to enter detailed contact information, even though it was typically their own. There were few occasions where a different contact was needed, but the process still required users to fill out all fields manually. Additionally, the checkout page was visually unappealing and offered no way to edit the cart, remove products, or get support without closing the process entirely.

To improve this experience, I redesigned the process by decoupling form completion from adding products to the cart. Now, users can freely add products to the cart and complete the necessary forms only when they’re ready to checkout. We also collaborated with the client to streamline the forms by removing unnecessary fields and allowing for visually customized groupings. A significant enhancement was simplifying the contact information entry: the new forms now automatically populate the logged-in user's contact details by default, with a drop-down option to select a different contact or add a new one, if needed. Additionally, the new checkout page includes form completion status indicators for each item in the cart, helping users easily track their progress during the checkout process.