Improving Epic Mix: A Product Management Case Study
Background:
This past Winter I spent a month living in Crested Butte, Colorado where I racked up nearly 30 days of skiing. After every day I eagerly opened my Epic Mix application to see how many lifts and vertical feet I had compiled for that day. While checking my stats was a highlight of my day, I constantly found myself asking, well, what if Epic Mix could do this? What if it could track my speed? What if it could tell me which route I took on this run? Conveniently, this was all happening as I was getting very interested in product management. I then thought to myself, what better way to learn product management then by doing it? So here we are, discussing how to improve Epic Mix.
My first step was to see if people were feeling the same way as I was. And oh boy, were they. Epic Mix currently has a whopping 1.8 rating out of 5.0 on the Apple store. This is when I one; remembered a quote I had heard in marketing class in college, “Content is king but engagement is Queen, and the lady rules the house!”, and two; realized that I could be a product manager and marketer. Taking all this to heart, this case study covers the practices, processes, and struggles which I encountered when trying to build new features and product market for the application Epic Mix. An application that has promising content, but desperately needs better engagement.
Epic Mix is an IOS application used by skiers and snowboarders at Vail Mountain Resorts to track vertical feet and lifts ridden on the mountain.
Objective:
As discussed above, while I use Epic Mix often, I find myself constantly wishing additional features were available to maximize my skiing experience. Some of the features I initially would have liked to see are: which runs and lifts I took, my speed throughout the run, and ability to compare stats with my buddies. But as a product manager and marketer I know that I must be a student of the customer. With this being said, through the research presented below I have listed the top features that users would like to see implemented in Epic Mix. Rather than reaching out to Vail Resorts, I decided I would put my PM and PMM hat on and just design the features and market Epic Mix myself.
The rest of this study will cover the steps I took to research, ideate, build, manage, and market a mockup of the features that not only I, but the skiing community most wanted for Epic Mix.
Customer Research:
Being an active user of the Epic Mix, I had a concrete idea of what I wanted Epic Mix’s features to include. However, as a competent product manager and product marketer I made sure of getting out and interacting with other users. With this information I could fully understand who was using the product and what their motivations were.
To start, I created a survey and sent it to active Epic Mix users who I contacted through various online forums and channels for Skiers and Snowboarders. I received just under 50 responses. While surveys are in some ways limited to providing feedback about a specific target user base, it was a great starting point to gain high level information on the customer base and communicate with users who were also frustrated with Epic Mix’s feature limitations.
The primary insights gained from the survey are listed below:
· User demographic
· User Retention
· Which competitors were being used
· Primary mountains skied
· Type of features users wanted implemented
The information collected from the survey was a perfect gateway into better defining who the target user was, and what their motivations and habits were. After conducting the survey I was able to further my research by directly communicating with users and understanding why they use Epic Mix and more importantly what they wanted to see out of Epic Mix.
Below find a summary of the user data and demographics:
While the majority of surveyors still use Epic Mix, the satisfaction rate is inverted. The satisfaction rate is 36% per app store ratings. This table tells me there is a large opportunity for improvement given that users are not satisfied, however still using Epic Mix.
The ages of surveyors ranged widely from 17 to 60 years old. This tells me that the market is well spread out among generations. This means that these features will have to be beneficial to a wide range of ages. In addition, for marketing purposes ages 22–43 seem to be the real bread and butter of the market.
It is apparent surveyors call various mountains home. With Breckenridge, Park City, Vail, being the three largest resorts surveyors called their “home mountain”, Epic Mix can use this data to target proposed features particularly in those areas.
Competitor Research:
The user research was pivotal in helping me gain an understanding of who Epic Mix’s potential users were and what they wanted. But it also helped me identify which competitors users utilized for tracking ski experience. Based on this information I looked at which products were on the market and broke down their features to understand what competitors value drivers were.
Recently I have become familiar with the KANO model for prioritization. The KANO model breaks features/ stories into basic core features, performance features, and exciter / delighter features. The chart below displays and compares Epic Mix to its competitors as it pertains to features.
It is clear that of all the ski tracking applications, Epic Mix is not the one necessarily making people rave about their ski tracking experience. In fact, while competitors do have more advanced features it is now clear to me that there is not a one stop shop for Skier experience. Given the competitor research conducted and customer feedback I received from my survey, the two primary features users most desire are:
1. Advanced dashboard of statistics
2. Social Capabilities including sharing stats, find my friends, pins/badges, and leaderboards.
It is important to note that these two features are quite broad. As we go through this case study, we will determine the specific features that fall under these two primary categories.
Affinity Mapping:
Once I had defined who Epic Mix’s user was through my survey, and what their aspirations and pain points were, the next step was to draw out the details of the two features I am going to implement.
Usually this step would be done in a conference room, or in these pandemic times I reckon a Microsoft Teams meeting, to truly allow the contributors to share ideas, insights, and comments. Since this is my own personal project, I had to complete the brainstorming on my own. I find that mapping is a great way to get all ideas organized on a whiteboard.
Something I have learned through reading about Product Management is that thoughts on a whiteboard leads to commonalities, commonalities lead to function, and function leads to a happy user. In this scenario I have created an affinity map for the features and ideas that I wanted to see out of Epic Mix epically mixed with the ideas received from customer feedback.
Canvassing:
The next step is to organize the drawing board. One tool I have recently come across that I found very useful in defining what this Epic Mix product will be and how it will produce value to its users is the business model canvas. This tool helps visualize what Epic Mix is, how it provides value, and what resources will be necessary in creating and maintaining its value. Below is the business model canvas that I used to help visualize what Epic Mix was missing and how it could be improved.
While the Business Model Canvas was extremely helpful in organizing which Epic Mix features will be implemented and how they will be implemented, I decided to take it a step further to canvas using the user-centered design canvas. After a bit of research I discovered that UX teams were finding this model the most successful when integrating this canvas into their workflow. If I am going to market this product, it would be even better to see exactly who my users were and what their pain points are in regard to Epic Mix.
User Personas:
Now that I have completed customer research and canvassing out a high-level idea of not only what features I want to see but also what current users wanted to see, I thought it be useful to create my target user persona. While this may seem unnecessary, visualizing exactly who your user is and how to design something they want to use can make the product even that more special.
Ideate:
Now that I have completed background research, canvassing, defined a target user, and lastly answered the question of what should be built, it’s time to begin the design phase. The fun part as some people would say. This was the part I was most excited about when dreaming out this case study, being creative is where I feel the most value.
User Flow Diagram:
At this stage, it is critical to spend some time and actually define the user flow interface. This will assist me in clearly defining how myself or another user would expect to interact with the new and improved Epic Mix. Ultimately, this step gives a direct walk through of what features are going to be created and how the workflow steps fluidly work together to make up a great product. This step taught me to be flexible and open minded as I found myself constantly changing the diagram. Sometimes you are only yet to discover what the best idea is.
User Stories:
Now that the user flow is outlined, the last step before the true design of the application is to test if these new features truly provide user benefit one by one. This led me to create user stories, the last step in breaking down how the user will interact with the product. Lastly, user stories clearly display acceptance criteria for each feature.
Wireframes:
Now that the user stories are complete and I have a comprehensive visual of what the new and revised Epic Mix will look like its time to design. In this section I have created wireframes using Balsamiq because it’s intuitive, general, and lets you create a solid rough mockup from your static pages. Below you can see a walkthrough of the wireframes that I created for the new Epic Mix features. In the wireframe stage I have found it helpful to leave comments so an outsider can get a full idea of the pages functions.
It is important to note that Wireframes are meant to be a somewhat general representation of how an app will look or function. I am not a UX designer or app developer however the mockups are straight forward enough that a user would be able to comprehend the general feel and function of the revised Epic Mix. After putting the Epic Mix mockup together I was able to get in touch with some users to gauge what they liked, disliked, or thought there was a lack of. This process led me to be fluid and change some interfaces like the advanced stats dashboard and add additional detail for runs taken by a user. In summary, wireframes are not only one of the last steps in visualizing Epic Mix, but also a helpful way in gathering feedback from end users.
As an aspiring product marketer, the most influential person in building and marketing a product is not myself, rather than the community of users who will offer valuable feedback.
With the Wireframe mockups created, the next step was to test with a small sample size of users who agreed to jump on a screen share and flip through the Wireframes with me. After the presentation, it was abundantly clear that not only was the UI concise enough for the user to follow, but also that the user has been dying to have these features to better create an all-around epic ski experience.
After completing this case study, I wanted to find a way to quantitatively validate that these features would provide user value. To test this, I ended up having some follow-up calls with users asking for a simple Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey asking on a scale to 1–10 how likely they would not only use the new Epic Mix but also recommend to a friend (including competitor users). The Final NPS was roughly 9/10 across the surveyed users. Even with a small testing pool, that still sure beats a 1.8/5.0 satisfaction rating.
Marketing Channels:
With the product finished and a successful user rating an important last step in the process is defining marketing channels to successfully get the product in the users hands. While the Epic Mix application comes with a purchase of an Epic Ski Pass, the successful distribution of these new features through marketing channels will attract new users away from competitors. With the user average demographic and age across the spectrum I like to visualize my marketing channels into a hybrid 6 category marketing strategy. These six categories include search engine optimization, social media marketing, search engine marketing, social media optimization, referral, and direct. This strategy compliments many marketing channels and is likely to get to a potential user. Below please see a breakout diagram of the concentrated marketing channels for Epic Mix.
Business Value:
Now that this case study is substantially complete, I wanted to finally discuss how these improvements and features to Epic Mix create significant business value for Vail Resorts. While I do not work for Vail Resorts I think as a product manager and marketer it’s always productive to come back and think big picture.
One thing I have discovered through my customer research is that pass holders are volatile when it comes to choosing a pass for the season. Many people will jump back and forth between competitors on any given season. I wanted to further validate this notion by looking into Vail Resorts 2020 10-K (most recent data available). What I found was that lift/pass revenue was down 11.6 percent from 2019[1]. While the 2020 Pandemic may have played some role in this decline, it is important to mention that if these features were implemented users would be more likely to show brand loyalty and choose Vail Resorts year-over-year given that their stats and ski experience would be retained in the Epic Mix system. This notion could be measured by looking at future years lift/pass revenue increase. Continuing and new customers would be more likely to choose Vail Resorts if they enjoyed the additional features of the app. In addition, if the application saves skier experience and data, they would be more inclined to continue to stack upon their stats and choose Vail Resorts every year. A great example of this would be pins, if a user achieved 15 pins one season, they are going to want to come back the next season to exceed 15 pins. These new features would not only attract new users looking for a one stop shop skiing experience application but also increase customer retention which in turn creates business value for Vail Resorts.
[1]https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/812011/000081201120000059/mtn2020073110-k.htm
Conclusion:
With the mockup and marketing channels in place, the very last step for this case study is to define what metrics would be efficient indicators of success when launched. While these metrics vary across industries and businesses, I think a good indicator of success is implementing a monthly generated report that displays increase in daily active users. This may be the most important metric because it will quantitatively show Vail Resorts how these new features are attracting users. An interesting point I gathered from my user research was that about 25 percent of Vail Resort pass holders choose to use a competitor to track their ski experience. This monthly tracking would be able to tell Vail Resorts if these features are bringing back users. If the case is that once the features are launched and the daily active users (DAU) increases substantially we can attribute it to a successful product launch. Given that Epic Mix has not launched new features over the years I think this is a fair assumption. It is important to note that the increase in user traffic will only help define the success of the new features and highlight the importance of always being innovative and creating new features.
Contact:
Thank you for taking the time to read my case study! If anyone has questions, comments, or is curious about my passion for product management please reach out to me!
maximilianlightsey@gmail.com
