Meet the New Vrbo: The Inside Story of How a Vacation Rental Site Got Remodeled

[Tripatini]

courtesy of Christopher Elliott

If you click on Vrbo to find a summer vacation rental, you'll find something new. There's a suite of new online tools to help you plan your next getaway. There's a psychedelic new "Vrbo" logo. And they're even changing the way they pronounce the site, from "V-R-B-O" to "Ver-boh."

It's a whole new Vrbo.

Sorry, I mean Ver-boh.

"We decided to refresh the brand," says Vrbo's president, John Kim. "We want people to be just as excited about finding the perfect place to stay as going on the trip itself."

But this isn't your average brand overhaul. It's a case study in how data can guide the changes a business makes, with the goal of creating a more customer-friendly interface. The new Vrbo could extend far beyond the site's core business of booking vacation rentals, touching other travel sites -- and perhaps even to your next vacation.

Why Vrbo Got Remodeled

To understand why Vrbo got a redesign, start with the user experience.

"We want people spending their time getting excited about a trip rather than frustrated by planning it," Vrbo's chief product officer, Tina Weyand told me. Vrbo already has thousands of immersive, 360-degree walk-throughs of properties that give travelers a better idea of what properties look like before booking. But could it offer more?

Vrbo's core customers are families and groups of friends. The company wants to immerse them in a vacation experience from the moment they visit the site. To that end, it has a lab where it uses a combination of research techniques from neuroscience and user experience to understand traveler behavior.

"Layering biometric and behavioral data into the traditional product development process helped us smooth away the friction and frustration people experience while booking travel while focusing on aspects of picking a home that gets people really excited," says Weyand.

The Vrbo Innovation Lab -- that's what they call it internally -- tested thousands of ideas. The current version incorporates the features that travelers find most helpful and fun, according to the company.

That's right, I said fun. More on that in a minute.

What's Changing at the New Vrbo?

Vrbo's internal data suggest that 86 percent of U.S. travelers make a vacation rental decision collaboratively. As part of Vrbo's redesign, it added the ability to create a custom "trip board" so you can "like" and save a favorite property and then share the property specs with everyone in your group.

The new board also lets your group members vote on their favorite property. If they've downloaded the Vrbo app, they can be notified when someone votes or comments on a property.

The company is adding more virtual tours, too.

"That makes it easier and faster to choose the best place for everyone," says Weyand. "People planning group vacations love being able to answer questions like 'How large is the deck? Is the upstairs playroom appropriate for my three-year-old kid?' using their own eyes."

Another change: the name. Traditionally, the name Vrbo has been spelled out. As in, "Vacation Rental By Owner."

Now, it's just "Ver-boh."

"Travelers and vacation rental owners have been calling us Ver-boh for years," says Kim.

This just makes it official.

How this Will Affect Your Next Vacation Rental

These changes, however small they may seem, could make a big difference in your next vacation rental. I know because I'm staying in a Vrbo vacation rental now, and I remember the planning process.

We found our Vrbo vacation rental in Santa Fe, N.M., a few weeks ago. Sifting through the options was pretty easy -- we got rid of the expensive ones, the rentals in iffy neighborhoods, and the ones with so-so reviews. It came down to three properties that I liked.

But sharing the three vacation rental candidates with my kids wasn't easy. I had to cut and paste the URLs into an email and then send it to all three.

What if we'd had an immersive tour of the property? What if we could have shared comments and voted on the rental?

We ended up with the perfect place: a three-bedroom rental within walking distance to our favorite grocery stores and a short hike to the Santa Fe Public Library.

Of course, making it easier to rent a place will also benefit Vrbo, which is owned by Expedia Group. But this is one of those rare win-wins, where customers, rental owners and the platform are all getting something from the change.

Vrbo is also ramping up its virtual tours. At the moment, it offers 15,000 virtual walkthroughs, which bring homes to life for travelers before they book, but it has ambitious plans to add even more in coming months.

<strong>How this vacation rental site remodel is different</strong>

From a customer service point of view, this remodeling project is atypical. Talk to a Vrbo executive, and it doesn't take long for the word "fun" to come up. As in, they want users to have fun on the platform. That's a little unusual, considering that e-commerce sites, and especially travel sites, tend to be all business (and all about the revenue, too).

Vrbo's remodeling also focused on customer experience, and that makes it noteworthy.

"The whole process of developing the new look, logo and even the new Vrbo pronunciation was very data-driven," Kim explains. "Everything from talking to customers face-to-face to wiring travelers up to sensors that indicate on a biological level which parts of the vacation planning process make them happy and which parts frustrate them."

Even the logo is a way to underscore the new customer experience, he notes.

"Everything about the new logo and visual identity is inspired by travel: the stripes in the new logo represent paths that bring people together, and the striped pattern was inspired by recurring sights seen during travel like the stripes on a beach umbrella or the curving routes of a road trip. Vrbo's new colors are inspired by the vibrant colors we see on vacation, like the blues of the ocean, greens in nature or vivid orange sunsets," says Kim.

How Will this Affect You?

Even if you don't stay in vacation rentals, this data-driven redesign could affect your next customer experience. Chances are, Expedia is closely watching the new site, monitoring customer feedback and profitability. If the new look is a hit, expect it to spread through the Expedia ecosystem, and perhaps beyond.

In other words, if you find a helpful feature that allows you to plan a trip in the future, like a collaborative trip board or an app that delivers better push notifications, then maybe -- just maybe -- you'll have Vrbo to thank for it.

Oops. I mean Ver-boh.

Christopher Elliott's latest book is How To Be The World’s Smartest Traveler”(National Geographic). For help with any consumer problem, please visit http://www.elliott.org/help This article originally appeared in Forbes.

© 2019 Christopher Elliott.