Get more reviews

Business problem
Only 2% of listings on Neighbor had a review. More reviews = better conversion.
User problem
Social proofing: renters want to know whether or not they should select a space.
Company: Neighbor Storage
Discovery & design: 1 month
Team: Myself and Chad Taylor (Product Manager)
Platform: Desktop web, mobile web, iOS, Android

Neighbor is like Airbnb, but for storage and parking.
Figma
In brief
Reservations last for months or years, so gathering reviews takes a long time.

We put better checks in place that resulted in a 4x increase in the number of reviews submitted by renters.

My process was not linear, but this case study is.
Jump to final designs
Early research
I read 292 reviews to understand the subject matter that renters usually wrote about. Chad (product manager), pulled some useful analytics.
Some of our findings
  • After ending their reservations, most renters viewed the "Rentals" screen, they receive or send a message, or they simply end the session / close the app.
  • Some renters wrote reviews about Neighbor.com, not their host nor the storage space.
  • Some renters were leaving reviews even though they had never moved in.
  • The average reservation is 7.5 months long. The median length is 4.
Design progression
A few ways that we incorporated research
  1. We added language to help encourage kind and friendly language.
  2. We chose to focus on the "Rentals" screen and the message thread to capture more reviews.
  3. We added hint text that makes it clear the review is for the host and their space, not Neighbor.com
  4. Because reservations span so many months, we added opportunities for renters to submit reviews before a reservation is over.
  5. We figured that lifecycle emails would be a great area to improve to get more reviews, if many renters leave the app after ending their reservations.
Did we user test?
We did not. Maybe that was a miss. However, the focus of this project was to craft well-placed notifications with simple UI. For that reason, we opted for speed-to-release.
Final designs
We prompt renters to leave a review when they end their reservation. We also send them an email or push notification if they don't submit a review.
Rather than waiting months or years, we ask renters for a star rating right after they move in.

We still ask for a review when they move out, and that review would override this one.
Proactive renters can still go to their reservation details and leave a review.
Hosts can ask renters for a review. We send them notifications, suggesting it.
Result

4x Review submissions

More listings with reviews = improved renter conversion = more revenue.