Using Didi Tickets to Talk About Product Demand, Experience, and Self-propagation

On August 9, Didi launched an innovative product called "Didi Ticket". After generating a "ticket" and giving it to others, the other party can conveniently take a taxi without downloading the app/registering an account.

The product usage process is:

1. Generate a ticket: Go to the ticket page of the Didi Chuxing App, select the ticket cover, enter the other party's mobile phone number and taxi destination to generate a ticket.
2. Gift tickets: You can send tickets to others through WeChat .
3. Receive tickets: The other party clicks the link to receive the ticket.
4. Using tickets: Within the validity period of the ticket, click the ticket link to specify the departure point and hail a taxi with one click. After the trip, the fare will be paid by the person who gave the ticket.

It can be seen that the product process is not complicated.

Today, let’s talk about product thinking and self-propagation strategies based on this product.

Why choose Didi Ticket? This is because I had the privilege of previewing the product before it was released.

That was about three months ago. Didi organized a new product seminar and invited about ten people, including me, to come up with ideas for this new product.

After the product manager introduced the product prototype, my first reaction was that this product was indeed quite creative. But after a little analysis, I feel that there are many problems.

Because I was helping out out of friendship and there was no business or interest connection or concern, I talked a lot about my true feelings and suggestions about the product without reservation - even though the original purpose of inviting me was to let me talk about the communication mechanism and ideas in combination with my main business of " marketing and self-communication."

Fortunately, many of our product-related viewpoints have been recognized by everyone.

Afterwards, I never communicated with Didi about this project again.

Recently I occasionally saw that this product has been launched, but I found that the product is basically the same as the demonstration that day.

As of today, the product has been online for half a month. I searched Weibo and my own circle of friends and found that there was very little discussion about it.

Although the time is still short and we cannot jump to conclusions about the success or failure of the product, this more or less shows that there are certain problems and also supports some of my previous judgments.

This concludes the introduction to product features and background.

Next, let’s talk about product demand, experience design, and self-propagation based on this product.

Product-communication pyramid model

First, let’s take a look at a “product-communication pyramid model”.

This pyramid links products and communication. Looking up from the bottom of the pyramid, there are four layers: "user needs, product experience, leveraged communication, and self-generated communication."

Below, they are introduced one by one in this order.

User needs

User needs are the basis of everything. If the needs are not grasped accurately, no matter whether the technology is advanced, the interaction is smooth, or the promotion is strong, failure will occur. But this basic question stumps most people.

Product Experience

If the needs are well understood, you can then design the product. However, as I stated in my previous article: "The product is basically usable and the experience is relatively smooth" is actually a very high and even luxurious requirement.

Leverage communication

Through some marketing methods and creative planning, we can achieve "quick explosion" and enhance brand awareness and loyalty.

Self-contained transmission

Self-contained communication means that the product itself has the ability to spread without relying on additional marketing methods.

This is also the self-propagation concept that I have always advocated and promoted, that is, to take communication into consideration during design, and to move "marketing", which was originally the last link in the "design-R&D-release-marketing" chain, to the front, so that marketing and product can be integrated into one .

Below are two examples of products that “have built-in communication”.

• Hotmail: By adding a small advertisement at the end of the email, inviting email recipients to register for a Hotmail account, the product achieved rapid growth in the millions and tens of millions at zero cost.
• WeChat red envelopes : Using the red envelope function instead of the traditional marketing method of "binding cards to get subsidies and free phone bills" has triggered a nationwide craze of "sending red envelopes and grabbing red envelopes", which has promoted the explosive growth of WeChat payments .

Obviously, since it is a pyramid model, it means that the lower level is the foundation and basis of the upper level.

Specifically, before designing the product experience, you must accurately grasp user needs; next, you can "leverage communication" to promote the product. The highest level of marketing promotion is to do no marketing, allowing the product to "communicate on its own", that is, to achieve self-propagation of the product.

After introducing this model, we will use this model as a thinking framework and combine it with Didi tickets to do a specific analysis.

Analysis of Didi Tickets

Needs and Experiences - Sending Parents

Judging from the introduction of the seminar and the product promotion page, Didi Chuxing is aimed at "parents and friends who are not convenient to take a taxi" and the experience is that the ticket recipient "does not need to download or register, and does not need to pay for the fare."

Let’s first talk about parents’ needs and experiences when using train tickets.

At first glance, this product seems to be very suitable for parents who are not very proficient in using mobile phones.

However, if you conduct a comprehensive and careful analysis of people's living habits, usage scenarios, operating procedures, etc., you will find that there are many problems in terms of user needs and product experience.

However, this way of thinking is lacking in many people. Everyone's logical thinking often only stays at the first level - "easy to operate → suitable for the elderly", so they applaud without thinking more deeply about the feasibility.

Generally speaking, parents who are enjoying their retirement have relatively fixed travel habits, basically traveling between "home, park, vegetable market/supermarket, and hospital." Over time, they all developed familiar ways of traveling.

Coupled with the fact that parents generally have frugal living habits and the existence of policies such as preferential treatment for the elderly, public transportation has become their preferred and familiar mode of transportation.

Therefore, parents are basically reluctant and feel that there is no need to spend money on taxis.

Of course you will say there is an emergency situation that requires a car, such as a medical attack. But the first choice at that time should be to call 120 for an ambulance, rather than looking for Didi tickets on WeChat.

It can be seen that the demand for parents to use tickets is very weak.

However, let’s assume that the demand exists and see if the product experience is reliable.

Even if parents need to take a taxi temporarily for some reason, you will find that the current product design is unreasonable.

Because the ticket is issued by the children , the parents must first contact their children and ask them to generate the ticket and send it to them immediately - this is obviously too troublesome. If the destination is not a place familiar to the children, communication will be even more difficult.

Of course, you can generate the tickets in advance and send them to your parents as a backup. But there are still problems. On the one hand, the tickets are valid for 3 months. On the other hand, the tickets will be mixed with other WeChat chat messages and can be easily deleted by mistake or buried and lost.

Taking a step back, assuming that the parents find tickets and take a taxi, you will find that there are many problems in determining the starting point. First, the probability that the GPS location of the parents' mobile phone is available at the time is relatively low. Second, if you want to manually click on the location on the map interface, it will be even more difficult.

Needs and Experiences: Gift to Lovers/Friends

The demand for sending gifts to lovers is also a very niche one. It is possible that couples might use it occasionally for fun for the sake of novelty, but the probability of long-term and large-scale use is relatively low.

The scenario of sending gifts to friends is possible, but the best scenario is "one to many" rather than "one to one".

However, according to the current product design, it would be very troublesome to deliver tickets to multiple people. For each person, you need to repeat several operations such as "select cover, determine destination, fill in mobile phone number, and send via WeChat".

How to improve

From the previous analysis, we can see that from the demand perspective, it is very difficult for parents to use train tickets.

Even if this demand exists and is strong, the product still needs a lot of improvement if it is to truly serve the needs of parents and allow them to feel at ease and conveniently take a taxi.

• Added the “departure/destination preset” function: children can set common locations such as “home, park, vegetable market/supermarket, hospital” in advance. When using it, parents only need to select according to the name (GPS positioning can also be used to assist in selecting the departure point). You can even provide a list of common routes in eye-catching fonts and icons, so parents can call a ride with just one click.

• Tickets are changed to "long-term, multiple-use": The current design of "valid for 3 months, single use" tickets has poor usability and can be changed to long-term validity and multiple-use, such as multiple uses within half a year or a year. This way, every time parents want to take a taxi, they can just click on the same ticket and use it, instead of having to ask their children for another ticket after using it once.

Where is the real demand? How to design experience and communication?

Since parents’ demands and experiences for using tickets are unreliable, we try to provide some reasonable usage scenarios and product improvement suggestions.

First of all, based on my personal judgment, there are two scenarios that are more suitable for the Didi Ticket product, namely "business reception" and "event invitation".

Needs and Experience 1: Business Reception

For business reception, it can be divided into the following situations:

• Premium treatment: The host will be accompanied by a dedicated person and car throughout the trip → No Didi ticket required
• Intermediate treatment: The host only sends a driver to pick you up → No Didi ticket required
• General treatment: The host does not have a car or is inconvenient to use one, but will help to call a taxi → Didi ticket required

It can be seen that the third situation is exactly the applicable scenario of "Didi Ticket".

Before the guest arrives, give him a ticket that can be used during the business trip (the number of taxi rides can be limited depending on the situation).

The advantage of doing this is that it saves the tedious process of guests "advance payment and giving invoices" and the host "reimbursing and returning the fares".

If the experience is better, you can preset locations such as "hotel, venue, airport, station" in the ticket to make it convenient for guests to choose when taking a taxi. This will make guests feel very considerate.

Need and Experience 2: Event Invitation

The event invitation scenario not only includes real and high-frequency demands, but also has the advantage that it can achieve “one-to-many” exposure and accelerate product dissemination.

The event invitation scenarios can be divided into two situations:

• Ask people for help: Just like the Didi seminar that day invited everyone to come and help with ideas, when the organizer invites others to help, they can create a WeChat group in advance and send a round-trip ticket to show sincerity. Those in need can click to receive it.
• Commercial activities: It can be used in many activities such as new store opening, fan gatherings, etc. Merchants can attach it to the activities. In this way, the application scenarios of Didi tickets will be wider, similar to a novel corporate marketing tool .

Corresponding to these two scenarios, the specific product approach is to implement a "multi-person ticket" , so that the ticket can be sent to the group, allowing dozens or hundreds of people to access and experience Didi tickets at one time.

At the same time, several problems are solved:

• Creation and delivery of tickets. It saves a lot of repetitive work in generating and sending tickets when there are too many people.
• Notification of event location. The destination is preset in the ticket, so there is no need to notify repeatedly.
• Understand arrival status. Depending on the situation, you can display everyone's arrival status: the real-time location of people using tickets to take a taxi, or just the distance/estimated time to protect privacy.

Financial risks

There are always two sides to every coin, and solving a problem will bring about new problems.

For example, compared with the current one-time tickets, the scenarios of "business reception" and "event invitation" will have greater financial risks because they require multiple and multi-person tickets. If the payment fails to be deducted from the gift giver after the trip, the loss will be even greater.

The solution is: on the one hand, you can make corresponding requirements on the credit of the person who makes the gift; on the other hand, if it is the company, you can ask them to prepay the fare, etc.

Leverage communication

After talking about user needs and product experience, let’s talk about marketing and promotion issues.

On the premise that the product supports "multi-person tickets", it can "leverage communication" to create creative and influential events like " Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in 4 hours ".

For example, you can plan activities such as "Hurry up and grab Didi tickets, take a taxi to see XX star/come to XX for a flash mob within 1 hour": participants open the page to grab tickets, take a taxi to see idols, or participate in interesting activities, parties, etc.

In this way, many creative co-branding activities can be carried out, which is also an opportunity to promote Didi Tickets.

Self-contained transmission

If the above two scenarios of "business reception" and "event invitation" are realized, especially the latter, the product will have the ability of "self-propagation".

Because event invitations are high-frequency, urgent needs, and a one-to-many link, Didi’s ticket product can quickly achieve self-propagation.

In addition, the methodology of product self-propagation can be applied to implant more self-propagation genes into this product, inspiring more people to share it on WeChat Moments when they get tickets or take a taxi.

However, because the current products are too functional and lack fun, and Didi's taxi tickets can only get "express cars" with lower-grade models, such a taxi experience cannot be used as " social currency" and it is difficult to inspire people to share it on WeChat Moments , so we need to think of a solution.

For example, you can use the self-propagation strategy of "implanting Easter eggs/creating an experience beyond expectations" , that is, consider the three aspects of "vehicle, driver, and destination", and plan in conjunction with corresponding festivals to stimulate user self-propagation.

• Vehicles: Provide some very cool vehicles, such as luxury cars, personalized cars (cartoon-themed vehicles), etc.
• Driver: A handsome or beautiful driver, or one wearing a costume with a specific theme.
• Destination: You can do a "mystery ticket" activity, where the destination and tasks are random, a bit similar to "4-hour escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou ".

Conclusion

This article combines the newly released Didi Ticket product with the "Product-Communication Pyramid Model" to discuss "grasping demand, designing experience, and establishing communication mechanisms."

• User needs : The demand for sending gifts to the elderly, loved ones, and friends is not strong enough, so you can try scenarios such as "business reception" and "event invitation".
• Product experience : The "single-time, short-term, limited to mobile phone number and destination" design is not convenient enough to use. It can be changed to a "multiple times, long term/short term, one-to-many" mode based on scenarios such as "business reception" and "event invitation".
• Leverage communication : Use co-branding and event marketing to create limited-time, interesting activities to get more people to use the tickets.
• Self-propagation : Through strategies such as "implanting Easter eggs/creating an experience beyond expectations", self-propagation mechanisms are implanted in ordinary product functions to encourage users to share their experiences to their friends when they receive tickets or hail a taxi, thereby achieving the goal of "letting the product speak for itself".

It can be seen from this that although Didi Ticket is just a small product and not the core function of Didi Chuxing, it is not easy to make such a product well.

In general, to grasp user needs and provide a good product experience, one needs to have strong scenario thinking, logical reasoning, and the ability to pay attention to details. These abilities cannot be acquired by just being a product manager ; they also require observation and thinking at all times in daily life.

As the saying goes, "One minute on stage takes ten years of hard work off stage" and "The hard work comes in peacetime."