Rentalcars.com |
Getting more customers to log in and book again: an expert review of Rentalcars.com’s loyalty experience
Rentalcars.com wanted more customers to log in and book again. Box UK reviewed the journeys either side of login and set out a prioritised plan to fix what was getting in the way.
In short
Rentalcars.com is an online car hire booking service. After a period of strong growth, it wanted more customers to log in and come back to book again, on desktop and mobile.
- Box UK reviewed the experience before registration and the common journeys after login.
- Key pages were assessed against usability principles and behavioural triggers such as reward and fear of missing out.
- A peers, innovators and competitors analysis compared the experience with other booking sites.
- The review found duplicate journeys, gaps on mobile and weak login recovery.
- Findings were ranked by effort and impact into short, mid and long-term actions.
Customer background
Rentalcars.com is an online car hire booking service. The business relies heavily on its digital presence, so the experience customers have on the site, on desktop and mobile, shapes whether they come back to book again or go elsewhere.
The challenge
Following a period of strong growth, Rentalcars.com wanted to strengthen its loyalty proposition: more customers logging in, and more of them returning to book again, on both desktop and mobile.
Before building anything new, it needed to know how well the current experience served customers, from the moment they considered registering through to managing a booking after login.
Our approach
Our consultants walked through the site exactly as customers would, across devices, and assessed each key page against established usability principles.
We drew on our work with membership organisations, where a smooth login experience is essential, to look at how behavioural triggers such as the desire for reward, fear of missing out, and contextual versus non-contextual sign-up prompts could encourage more customers to register and return.
We also looked closely at the details: the language used, form usability, and what customers could take in at a glance. And we ran a peers, innovators and competitors analysis, comparing Rentalcars.com’s login and loyalty experience with other car hire sites and strong booking journeys from other industries.
What we found and recommended
- Duplicate journeys that could confuse customers about where to go.
- Mobile gaps in specific tasks, such as cancelling a rental.
- Weak recovery when customers forgot their login details or hit other problems signing in.
- A prioritised plan, mapped to Rentalcars.com’s objectives and ranked by effort versus impact, covering quick wins, mid-term improvements and longer-term goals.
The outcome
Rentalcars.com came away knowing how well its loyalty experience served customers before and after login, and how it compared with other car hire sites and strong booking journeys from other industries.
It also had a plan mapped to its own objectives, with every recommendation ranked by effort and impact. That meant it could start with the quick wins that would deliver most for least effort, and base bigger changes to its loyalty proposition on what customers actually struggled with.
Frequently Asked Questions
Make it easy and rewarding to log in and come back. That means clear journeys after login, simple account recovery, good mobile support for tasks like cancellations, and prompts that give customers a reason to register.
A contextual sign-up asks people to register at a moment when it clearly helps them, such as saving a booking. A non-contextual one asks up front, before they’ve seen the value.
A way of ranking recommendations by how much work they need and how much difference they’ll make, so the quickest, most valuable changes happen first.
What this means
for your organisation
If you depend on repeat customers who only need you a few times a year, the experience after they log in matters as much as the one that won them. Small frictions, like a confusing account area or a login that’s hard to recover, are enough to send them to a competitor.
If you want to know where yours are, send us a few lines about your logged-in experience. We’ll tell you where we’d look first.
Talk to one of our digital experts
Federica Monticelli
UX Designer
Want to make your digital experiences feel effortless?
Federica blends Italian flair with British UX rigour to craft interfaces that feel effortless and intuitive. With a background in psychology and user experience, she’s passionate about understanding what makes users tick – and turning those insights into beautifully functional designs. Ready to turn user behaviour into better design?
Or call us on 020 7439 1900
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