Elsa Ho gave a presentation at UX STRAT USA 2021 on the topic: "Influencing Strategy: A DoorDash Case Study"

1. Five ingredients of influencing
strategy - A case study at
DoorDash
Oct, 2021 UX STRAT
Elsa Ho

2. About me
2
UX Strategy
consulting
From Taiwan, worked in Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei, Seattle, now in San
Francisco. Been doing research in the past decade at both consulting firms and
tech companies.

3. DashPass - DoorDash’s
subscription service
3

4. 4
How many of you have been in the following situation?
1. Working with a business team that knows very little about UX
Research
2. Working in an extremely fast paced environment
3. Trying to influence the team remotely

5. Biz team
Number-driven business team with
background in finance
(Biz:Product = 10:1)
High speed
Startup speed (1-2 weeks
turnaround time for research)
All remote
I joined remote and have been
working remotely
Team Context
5

6. What we will walk through today:
Partnered with data
scientist to size the
opportunities
Convinced the team
to work a broad
problem
Influenced strategy 5 ingredients of
influencing strategy
1 2 3 4
6

7. Subscription service goals
Adoption
Retention / Churn
7

8. Subscription service goals
Adoption
Retention / Churn
8

9. 9
The exit survey in-app
didn’t tell us why
● People who said they “don’t order enough”
actually ordered plenty
● A significant amount chose “others”

10. 10
Follow interviews and
surveys to dig deeper into
the whys behind each
reason
10

11. 11
We found that the in-app
cancelation survey was not
MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive)
And some of the reasons were
not the root causes
“Not worth it” “Don’t order enough”
cost
Want to eat healthier,
Traveling, Moving,
Didn’t order enough,
Not going to order enough in the
future
...

12. We found many reasons, but they are lengthy
and hard to memorize for the business team
Ordering food is expensive
Want to reduce eating out
Want to eat healthier
Feeling guilty about ordering food
Food took too long
Food was cold when arrived
Don’t want to pay for DashPass
Unhappy with support
...
Incorrect items
The restaurant I want to order from is not on DoorDash
12

13. The business team
frequently use certain
terms to describe problems
Affordability
Selection
Quality
Cost, price, etc.
Number of merchants available
missing or incorrect items, etc.
13

14. Presentation Subject
14
Re-categorize the
cancelation reasons into 3
categories that the team is
familiar with, plus a newly
identified one
Affordability
Selection
Quality
Lifestyle
“Moving to a region without DoorDash”
“The restaurant I want to order from is not on DoorDash”
→ Selection

15. 15
Combine survey and in-app
data, re-size the reasons of
cancellation based on this
new framework
● Went through all the open-ended responses
● A simple algorithm to categorize the open ended
responses
● Combined in-app data with survey data X% of users mentioned they don’t order enough (in-app).
Among those, Y% mentioned it was lifestyle related reason (survey), and Z%
mentioned lifestyle in the open ended response (in-app)
X% * Y% + Z%

16. 16
For the first time, the team was able to
quantify the cancelation drivers
Low order frequency High order frequency Breakdown
Affordability ⬤% 〇%
aaaa (X%)
bbbb (Y%)
cccc (Z%)
Health / Lifestyle ⬤% 〇%
Selection ⬤% 〇%
Quality ⬤% 〇%

17. However…
“health” is a broad and
fuzzy problem
What is “healthy?” Why do people feel guilty when ordering food?
Is that really a problem?

18. 18
Quantitative
Quant data already showed it was a problem.
Bringing the data to life with qual
Qualitative

19. 19
Break up letter from those who ordered a
lot but still canceled, to build empathy
Dear DashPass,
It’s not you, it’s me…
- Former Member

20. Yo ma e t t o eas
fo e... somet mes I orde e to mu h o
ga n r m the be efit o ree e ve
instead o a nin t e uarant ne
15 I ga ne t e ov 20
I sim l o l t
contro yse f ...
I rea y, rea y nee to star
eat n hea th a a n
I ga ne we ht...

21. Now we shed some light to
the problem. But...what
exactly is “healthy”?

22. We do have a “healthy” tab.
What should we do more?

23. 23
Learnings from customers-
“Healthy” means different
things to different people
“My partner is trying to build muscle. What is healthy for him
might not be for me.”
“Healthy” might not always
be attractive
“If I am spending all that money for delivery, I don’t want to
order something healthy.”
“When I hear “healthy” I think about veggies. Whatever that is it
can’t taste good.”

24. 24
Learnings from the internal team-
Found a team of
nutritionists and dietitians
Learned what type of food
was more attractive
● For example, the “Paleo” carousel had the highest
conversion rate in one of the tests
● Proved through tests that people order more when
exposed to different dietary options
Paleo Gluten-free
<500
calories
Vegan ...

25. Operational test results and
data from the nutrition team
Breakup letter
Health deep dive
research
Quantitative Qualitative
A mix of approaches to build empathy &
make a business case

26. Concretized fuzzy needs such as health and guilt
Made “healthy” actionable
Demonstrated potential business impact
1
2
3
How these helped?

27. Completing the puzzle by
looking into adoption
Retention
Adoption

28. 28
Retention Adoption
1. Affordability 1. Need to feel
comfortable with
subscriptions
2. Lifestyle / health 2. Uncertainty in usage
3. Selection 3. Affordability
4. Quality
Brainstorm future initiatives
based on the driving factors
of adoption and retention
HMW make ordering
food more affordable?
HMW create value for
customers who don’t order
food much?

29. Looked at the business problem more holistically
Went from top-down to bottom up planning
Make sure the team is solving the right problems
1
2
3
How these helped?

30. 30
Outcome: Strategy updates
● Product, Product Marketing, and the business
teams refined their plans and strategies
● Insight-driven initiatives

31. 31
Outcome: Product updates
● Making it easier to find healthy items
● Editorial content on healthy eats
● Improving the cancelation flow
● ...
Cheesecake
factory in “healthy”
More accurate and item-level tagging

32. 32
Bonus: team structure
updates
● The nutrition team became part of the core
consumer experience team

33. User Experience
System, Processes & Tools
Experience metrics (CSAT, NPS, etc.)
Touch points
Product
&
Service
Marketing
&
Sales
Operation
&
Support
33
Examine problems
from a holistic
business level rather
than the product level

34. Five additional ingredients
of influencing strategy
Approach the battle in stages and don’t fight it
alone.
Solve for your audience, not just for users.
Repeat yourself.
Own the problems the team works on.
Take the driver seat when no one does.
1
2
3
4
5
34

35. Ingredient #1
Approach the battle in
stages and don’t fight it
alone.
● Strategy is not influenced overnight
● Partner with those who can gather data or
make business cases
Example:
○ A staged approach towards retention and adoption
○ Partnership with data scientists, the nutrition team, etc.
35

36. Ingredient #2
Solve for your audience,
not just for users
● Understand the way they think, their goals,
their receptiveness of research, etc.
Example:
○ Utilized different methods for the team to understand
the power of qual
○ Frame the findings with terms the stakeholders are
familiar with
36

37. Ingredient #3
Repeat yourself
● The forgetting curve
● For stakeholders to truly internalize research
findings, constant reminder is needed
● Find any opportunities to insert important
insights
37

38. Ingredient #4
Own the problems the
team works on
● Socializing findings can only bring you so far
● Take the driver seat of what the team is
solving and building
Example:
○ Led the insight-driven brainstorming sessions during
planning cycles, and proactively contributed to the
planning doc
38

39. Ingredient #5
Take the driver seat
when no one does
● Have a POV
● Consider taking a lead on testing out the idea
or carrying out the strategy
Example:
○ The “Health” initiative: vision exercise with design, ran
quick and dirty tests to validate hypothesis
39

40. Just like cooking, we
need to improvise!
Take the driver seat
when no one does.
Approach the battle in stages
and don’t fight it alone.
Solve for your audience, not
just for users
Repeat yourself.
Own the problems
the team works on.
1
2
3
5
4
40

41. Thank you! Questions?
41