Avis Budget Group
2024-2025
Re-envisioning the global website experience for Avis.com and Budget.com
In fall 2024, Avis Budget tasked Instrument with a full overhaul of Avis.com and Budget.com. Their goal was to unify 50+ disparate regional websites into one modern, flexible platform that improved customer experience, increased booking conversion and standardized content authoring across regions. They needed a system that scaled for the nuances across both brands and the unique needs of US, EMEA and APAC and many smaller regions.
As Strategy Lead on the Instrument side, I led a discovery phase to gather & synthesize insights to identify highest impact opportunities; spearheaded roadmapping and prioritization efforts, worked cross-discipline with design, product and engineering to coordinate sprint plans, then lead a team through UX design and testing over the course of 6 months of iterative design sprints.
This was a large, collaborative effort between Instrument as the product design agency, Avis Budget business leaders and product teams as well as third party development partner and program managers. The redesign launched in US markets early in 2026 and continues to roll out across APAC and EMEA.
The Problem
Customers increasingly use third-party booking websites to discover and book rental cars, deciding primarily based on price. Avis Budget struggled to demonstrate to customers how they were different, and why they should be loyal to Avis or Budget.
Our Question
How can Avis Budget differentiate from competitors to become customers' go-to rental option?
Impact
Over 9 months, we optimized the full customer experience for searching, booking & managing a rental car on Avis and Budget websites anywhere in the world, with the goal of increasing direct booking rates, decreasing drop-off and increasing member sign-ups.
Discovery
I spearheaded a 7-week discovery phase, identifying customer pain points and business goals. This resulted in 6 strategic priorities:
01
Streamlined, customized booking flow
User Insight: Customers struggle to determine which ancillary products are right for their trip, and feel the process includes too many steps. Goal: Provide smart, personalized recommendations for vehicles + ancillaries.
02
Transparency in pricing & car offerings
User Insight: Customers don’t currently trust that they are seeing the full price upfront. This may be one cause for the 42% drop-off during checkout when full price is displayed. Goal: Alleviate customer doubts and skepticism around price and car offerings while balancing sticker shock.
03
Ancillary product merchandising
A/B Testing Insight: Bundles perform better on Avis than Budget. Goal: Make it easy to select the ancillary bundles curated for exactly what customers need for their trip.
04
Intentional offers and promotions
User Insight: Budget customers convert more on ancillaries when they are split into individual products. Goal: Provide a nuanced display of ancillaries that reduce overwhelm for Budget customers.
05
Loyalty program offerings
User Insight: Customers feel promotion pop ups are overwhelming and annoying, but they drive an enormous share of revenue for the business. Goal: Reduce overwhelm of promotions and bring discounts into context.
06
Better serve corporate booking customers
User Insight: Business travelers often rebook the same or similar trips and could have the same rental needs. Goal: Allow customers to easily toggle between personalized experiences for business and personal use cases.
Prioritization & Scoping
I facilitated cross-discipline prioritization efforts, defining P0/P1/P2 features across the end-to-end customer journey
Design
Partnering with designers, we delivered a system of components and page templates for a new CMS that enabled content authors to retain brand consistency while meeting their region's unique customer needs.
Scalable Component Design System
Instrument delivered a robust design system of components and page templates with usage guidelines.
CMS Page Templates & Content Authoring Guidelines
We delivered a set of page templates along with usage guidelines that cover all additional pages on the website.
Key Contributions
My Contributions
Discovery & Vision
As the sole strategist in the Discovery phase, I planned and facilitated client workshops, stakeholder focus groups, oversaw user testing on the existing website and consolidated insights from website analytics to identify and prioritize opportunities. This resulted in a cohesive Vision and strategy for the website redesign.
Requirements Gathering
For each sprint, I facilitated cross-discipline requirements gathering sessions. I wrote user stories and acceptance criteria defining the end to end experience, then validated against the needs of product managers from each of the 3 hero regions - US, EMEA and APAC.
Team Leadership
I oversaw all UX Design and Research across the full website redesign, ensuring quality outputs. I managed full time team members and freelancers.
Stakeholder Management
At each touchpoint, I presented work and got buy-in from executive leaders at Avis Budget, helping the work move forward while keeping key stakeholders in the loop.