Plum Co-Ownership
Self-Scheduling System for Vacation Home Sharing
Plum Co-Ownership enables multiple owners to share vacation homes, with Plum managing costs, maintenance, and scheduling for a hassle-free experience. Based in Durham, NC, Plum’s goal is to simplify vacation home co-ownership and empower owners to manage their stays independently.
Challenge
Plum’s previous scheduling system required verbal communication with staff to arrange stays, limiting users’ control and visibility into occupancy. This led to inefficiencies and created confusion around booking availability.
Objectives
Develop a self-scheduling system on Plum’s website to give users direct control over booking their stays.
Remove the need for users to rely on staff for scheduling, making the process fully self-service.
Research
Given co-ownership’s niche nature, I began by interviewing stakeholders and co-owners to gain insights into business and user needs. This revealed critical aspects of co-owners’ scheduling behaviors and pinpointed pain points in the current process.
Research Goals
Understand co-owners' behaviors and preferences.
Identify pain points in the current scheduling process.
Gather insights into desired features to improve flexibility and transparency.
User interview & insights
Interviews with Plum users via Zoom provided valuable feedback:
Flexibility was essential—users wanted autonomy over scheduling.
Transparency was crucial to avoid booking conflicts or misunderstandings.
Feature Prioritization
Based on user feedback, I prioritized three key features:
Ability to add stays independently.
Customizable scheduling preferences for each co-owner.
Options to swap or edit bookings as needed
Design and prototyping
Using user feedback and company requirements, I designed a comprehensive online vacation calendar with a self-scheduling function. The calendar allows users to:
Schedule and view vacation stays independently.
See a group view of availability, complete with labeling and avatars to identify who is scheduled for each date.
Set scheduling preferences, add new members, and customize settings, enhancing flexibility and transparency for all users.
Building Features
The new scheduling feature included multiple viewing options (day, week, month) for convenient filtering, allowing users to view a full 365-day calendar. This layout supported Plum’s goal of providing transparency in occupancy and scheduling. The system also offered:
Holiday and event scheduling options for group planning.
Add, swap, and edit features for a flexible and customizable booking experience
Launch and feedback
The self-scheduler launched in October 2022, receiving positive feedback. Usage monitoring and user evaluations indicated high satisfaction, with recommendations to further enhance the design for even greater ease.
Project Takeaways
Following the launch of the new scheduling system:
Website traffic increased, indicating heightened user engagement.
User satisfaction with the booking process improved significantly, with engagement up by 18% and session durations increasing by 30%.
The project underscored the importance of flexibility and transparency for co-owners, driving continued improvements to optimize Plum’s shared vacation home experience.