Plus Relocation & Capital One · 2018Leading the Design of a Category-Defining Product
Early Point C design displaying an active timeline
In 2018, the relocation experience was often one-size-fits-all, rigid, and opaque for the end-employee. It relied heavily on manual communication, leading to “policy exception” bottlenecks that frustrated both HR and employees.
I was engaged through my consulting company to design an industry-first product in collaboration with Capital One, empowering users to control and customize their relocation experience.
Discovery Research and Product Definition
I defined and executed a research plan creating a data-informed basis for the near-term product roadmap.
Persona Segmentation: Conducted background research to determine newly quantified user personas, segmenting by benefit value and scope of required services.
User Research: Facilitated recruitment of new personas, and conducted user interviews to understand challenges and opportunities in the pre, during, and post-relocation experience.
Product Definition: Defined essential features, benefits, and product scope based on synthesis of discovery data.
Sample of interviewee attributes revealing opportunities for quantifiable segmentation
Product Design and Innovation
My research revealed several innovative opportunities that would help differentiate Point C beyond basic customization and digitization. I led the definition, prioritization, and design of these new, innovative features.
Relocation Onboarding: A simple, user-friendly email-to-onboarding experience was designed to establish Point C as the user's unified relocation command center.
Relocation Timeline: The central theme in user feedback was the lack of transparency and control around when and how benefits could be used. This valuable insight led to the creation of the Timeline, a simple interface visualizing the order of and status of events.
Benefit Scheduling: To facilitate the creation of a functional timeline, the benefits selection process needed to be imbued with scheduling functionality. This included designing a system for scheduling each benefit, as well as communicating its current status.
Granular Customization: To facilitate true perceived customization, a credit system was developed that allowed the "right-sizing" of each benefit to match the scale of the user's needs.
Mobile, Desktop, and Service Design: The entire Point C platform was designed from scratch, including all screens across mobile, desktop, and communications touch points.
The Timeline was a breakthrough feature helping users visualize and plan
Benefit cards opened to reveal additional detail and the scheduling interface
The full experience was designed to adapt across viewports
From Service Provider to Platform Pioneer
The transformation of Plus Relocation via Point C represents a definitive shift in the global mobility landscape—moving from a legacy model of “manual gatekeeper” to a modern era of “user-orchestrated mobility.” By applying a design-led approach to a historically rigid industry, I digitized the process and restructured the underlying business logic of relocation.
Key Takeaways
Decoupled Growth from Headcount: Successfully transitioned the business from a labor-intensive service model to a scalable SaaS-enabled platform, reducing administrative overhead by 30–40%.
Pioneered "Managed Flexibility": Engineered a first-of-its-kind granular customization system, leading to ~100% revenue growth over four years, without a linear increase in operational costs.
Solved the "Black Box" Transparency Gap: Designed a unified relocation timeline that aggregated fragmented third-party data into a single source of truth, driving platform adoption to 85%—nearly triple the industry benchmark.
Service Design Integration: Orchestrated the end-to-end service design—from hiring manager talking points to vendor communications—ensuring a cohesive brand experience across all physical and digital touchpoints.
Validated Design-Led Business Value: Leveraged foundational research with Capital One to ensure the MVP addressed high-value pain points, resulting in Plus Relocation achieving the #1 Net Satisfaction (NS) ranking in the Small-Share category.