Process
Empathise
We had interviews with the account managers who were working closely with UEFA and we’re doing the manual property contracting to understand their long term objectives, current pain points, and tools they use. To better understand specific pain points we spent a couple days each week working alongside our users to shadow their work, review their targets, and get immediate feedback on prototype and development.
What we did:
- Relocated to the account managers office twice a week to work along side them
- Daily alignment meetings to understand their current objectives, milestones, targets, bottlenecks, as well show early sketches or wireframes
- Did regular shadowing, monitoring calls and documenting tools used and time spent on tasks
- Created proxy metrics, such as time till contracts were drafted, sent, revised, and signed
- Facilitated brainstorms and feedback sessions on early sketches
Journey Mapping
We mapped out the long term journey, from contracting properties, presenting appropriate properties to the VIP groups, sending and review request for proposals between guests and properties, and allocating guests. We highlighted where there would be human friction and bottle necks and had brainstorms around solutions and potential products to improve efficiency.
What we did:
- Mapped out the entire planned user journey with different touch points by all the users involved
- Defined the different phases and pain points of those phases
- Outlined current tooling and highlighted which caused efficiency bottlenecks or had no solution proposed
- Defined a roadmap of the main pain points and solutions to deliver
Contracting Tool
We quickly recognised that drafting contracts was immensely time consuming and standardised contracts were rarely used, so we created a tool to automate and customise contracts as much as possible. By working alongside the account managers, we could brainstorm and gather immediate feedback on prototypes and eventually the final solution and to monitor time saving.
What we did:
- Reviewed the workflow and tools used in contracting
- Audited a set of revisions and requests made
- Created a contract template and outlined common variables
- Gathered feedback on sketches, wireframes, and prototypes
- Tested our tool with a sample of account manager to compare efficiency
Property Catalogue
We also saw that guests group struggled to review the properties using the standard Booking.com website as it might have conflicting communications between contract agreements. We spent a week outside of our normal planning structure as a product team, in a off-site design sprint to ideate, prototype, test, and build a unique UEFA property catalogue.
What we did:
- Shadowed calls and review process of presenting properties to VIP groups
- Outlined main decision making criteria as well as contracted specific details
- Facilitated a brainstorm with account managers to align on needs and user flow
- Facilitated a 2 week design sprint where we explore multiple ideas, created prototypes, tested with the events team, and developed a live MVP for user testing
- Gathered feedback from VIP groups, reiterated and launched a final catalogue
Solution
Over the span of a 2 years, we created multiple tools to help different user groups successfully plan and execute multi-leg and large group travel for the UEFA 60th anniversary event. These included:
- A contracting tool to automate and customise properties contracts for the event
- A specialised catalogue to allow the special groups to review potential accommodations and their conditions
- A request to proposal flow, so properties can review potential large group bookings, availability and allocate large room blocks
- A Booking.com and UEFA check-out portal, so individuals from the groups can review and manage their specific Bookings
- An internal tool to track account manager workflow for properties and special large groups and highlight urgency
Wireframes for creating group requests and room blocks
Landing page for groups to search for UEFA contracted properties
Catalogue of UEFA contracted properties for group bookers
Impact
- Onboarding time reduced from ~24 hours to minutes.
- Successfully supported thousands of hotels for the UEFA event.
- UEFA renewed trust in Booking.com as a reliable partner.
- The new onboarding flow became a blueprint for future large-scale partnerships.
Reflection
This project reinforced the power of design under pressure: clear prioritization, rapid iteration, and close collaboration can deliver solutions that not only solve the immediate problem but scale into long-term improvements.