AI pet portraits
Delight customers with stylized holiday AI pet portraits increasing app downloads by 23%
Chewy is an online retail store for pet owners. It has built a loyal following by helping pet parents care for their pets as family members, and through programs like the hand-painted portrait program — where customers are randomly selected and sent a hand-painted portrait of their pet on different occasions.
- Leverage Gen AI to make the program scalable for all loyal customers
- Increase mobile app usage
Deliver AI pet portraits to Chewy's loyal customers, enhancing loyalty recognition.
My role
- End to end design from exploratory research to working with mobile devs and ML scientists to implement designs as per specs and measure impact for further iterations.
- Created design work back plans with Product Managers and Program Managers, secured critical resources (content writers, office hours with Researchers), and implemented designs directly with Android/iOS developers.
- Iterated designs through close collaboration with stakeholders in brand, research, design system and support.
Hydie (55 year old), a typical loyal Chewy customer.
To explore how generative AI could add the most value, I led a workshop with my PM to assess where Gen AI can help improve in the process and where, generating 34 ideas. Detailed out the top 3 to test with 6 customers. AI Pet Portraits surfaced as the idea that resonated the most with customers.
- With Chewy's growing user base, the existing hand-painted portrait program was struggling to create an emotional connection and show recognition for their loyalty. Through user interviews and social listening, I uncovered that the Pet Portrait's random selection process, meant to surprise and delight customers, left many loyal high-spending customers feeling overlooked and undervalued. This created a perception of unfairness and missed recognition.
- Speaking with support I learnt many customers returned the canvas unsure why they received it or dissatisfied with the portrait of their pet. Even if the user liked the portrait, it was hard to track the impact of the pet portraits program on purchases or user behavior. The program didn't transfer the traffic to either mobile app or website.
- Too many choices on mobile overwhelmed customers, pushing them to browse on web.
Have consistent and unified Chewy branding like other offerings.
Balance inclusivity and exclusivity.
Develop trust by visually distinguishing AI features from the rest and giving control to users.
Make the offering uniquely and exclusively Chewy.
How might we replace random surprise with intentional recognition that makes loyal customers feel seen and valued?
Define a clear eligibility criteria. Have a well defined tiered program where AI Portrait is offered once (inclusive tier) to customers spending $3k or more per year. Reserve hand painted portraits (exclusive tier) for curated users for special emotionally compelling moments and stories.
The customer should get directed to the mobile app:
- For exclusive tier: Have a QR code on the card sent that directs the user to mobile app experience.
- For inclusive tier: Send an email that directs the user to mobile app experience.
Went through iterations to properly set customer's expectations on how the AI flow works.
Iterations of loading screens as I worked through AI constraints and capabilities.
How might we make it clear to Hydie why she received a pet portrait and what she can do next?
