How BlaBlaCar Enhanced New Feature Adoption and Reduced the Risk of Churn

Challenge

Understanding the voice of 26 million users from 21 countries

At the heart of BlaBlaCar's cutting-edge technology is a dedicated team of experts from Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Research Teams. 

Together with Rebecca, Head of Research at BlaBlaCar, these professionals work relentlessly to introduce new features, enhance user experiences, and drive business growth. Their efforts are guided by a culture of continuous improvement, which always starts with listening to their community feedback. 

However, as BlaBlaCar expanded to serve 26 million users across 21 countries, the team found it increasingly difficult to analyze feedback from such a large user base. They soon realized they lacked a scalable solution and couldn't keep up with the volume of feedback they were receiving.

“The question was: How can we scale this process while enabling everyone in the company to easily access user feedback about our product and thus better understand our users’ needs?" 

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Solution

Customer feedback analytics designed for Product, Engineering and Research Teams

Realizing that analyzing user feedback quickly was essential, the team started to search for a feedback analytics platform. They needed a user-friendly, collaborative and intuitive tool to help uncover actionable customer insights within vast volumes of data. 

They ultimately chose Chattermill for its scalable infrastructure, robust translations capabilities, and an easy to use user interface that allowed them to democratize the voice of the customer across Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Research Teams.

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Identifying pain points and predictive churn reasons faster 

Soon after implementing Chattermill, BlaBlaCar began analyzing user feedback to identify major pain points and product issues. The team used Chattermill to identify which aspects of their product were causing customers to churn. By monitoring how their metrics changed, detecting drops in NPS or net sentiment, and pinpointing the root causes of issues, they could take targeted action to improve their product and prevent churn.

"Chattermill helps us understand how different themes impact our NPS, identify why our score dropped, and find ways to improve it. We monitor NPS per country, per business line, and user segment, and then we use Impact Analysis to identify the biggest issues, detect trends month-to-month, and pinpoint any drops in specific categories. For example, if we see a decline in the User Experience category, the Product Team can investigate the underlying causes using the details and context from customer comments."  

In addition, the team used Alerts to stay informed about significant shifts and abrupt declines in almost real-time. This included deviations in feedback volume from expected ranges and automatic notifications for issues such as sign-up difficulties or technical errors.

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Monitoring the impact of new product releases 

With the power to monitor user experience at every touchpoint, Rebecca’s team began to uncover critical issues impacting their product metrics. 

“A few years ago, we launched Boost - a brand new feature that helps drivers find extra passengers who can travel for a part of their ride. Exciting as it was, our NPS survey soon flooded with user feedback: drivers questioned how the feature worked, its value for them and the potential detours on their route it brought,” says Rebecca. 

The team could now monitor their product releases and use customer insights to enable faster feature development and more responsive problem-solving.

“That feedback sparked discussions and deeper dives into how drivers used and perceived the feature. It prompted substantial iterations on the feature, including revisiting the design board, conducting usability tests, and looking into adding new functionalities. As a result, we invested into educating our users about how the feature worked, explained the benefits, and suggested the most convenient meeting points for the drivers and the passengers," says Rebecca.

"Since then, if we notice any discrepancies in the numbers or low adoption rates, we can always turn to Chattermill for more details. It's like having a direct line to our users - it helps us prioritize areas for improvement effectively and fine-tune our approach,” she adds.

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Using customer insights to guide the product roadmap 

Finally, BlaBlaCar started using Chattermill to inform its overall product strategy and prioritize strategic initiatives while improving operational efficiency. 

"Whether it's our annual roadmap or the quarterly plan, we closely examine insights from Chattermill to help support our decisions. We can quickly uncover the top pain points for our users, and then prioritize them based on their business impact, considering factors like retention and NPS improvement potential," says Rebecca. 

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Results

26 million active users and counting, 4.7 app rating on Apple App Store  

With the ability to monitor the user journey at every touchpoint, Rebecca's team uncovered critical issues affecting product adoption and retention. The AI-powered feedback analytics solution also improved their operational efficiency and enhanced their product development processes.

"In the research and discovery phase, our Product Managers used to dive into individual tools and reviewed support tickets, social media posts, or customer surveys, but Chattermill revolutionized this approach. In just 2 minutes, Product Managers can delve into user comments regarding our app's specific feature requests or pain points, making the discovery process seamless and efficient."

As BlaBlaCar continues to focus on innovation and driving customer satisfaction by listening to millions of users, Chattermill helps them automate and scale this process consistently and efficiently. 

From identifying critical customer pain points to monitoring product launches and guiding product strategy, Chattermill enables BlaBlaCar to remain dedicated to closing the feedback loop with its customers.

‍Discover how Chattermill can help you leverage customer feedback to optimize the user journey – book a demo today.