Doubling New Engagement With Lyft’s Women+ Connect Feature

Earlier this year, Lyft nationally expanded its highly requested feature called Women+ Connect, which helps women and non-binary riders and drivers ride together more often.
However, not all eligible drivers had opted in. Was it because they missed the first announcement, or was there another reason?

Lyft partnered with Irrational Labs to test how to get more drivers to pay attention. Together, we applied behavioral science principles to increase driver opt-ins to Women+ Connect and drivers’ engagement with Lyft. Our efforts led to a remarkable 173% increase in new opt-ins in the winning treatment. However, we found an intriguing trade-off: the message that most increased opt-ins was not the one that led to the most driver hours. This suggests surprising lessons for product teams looking to launch new features while also boosting engagement.

The Opportunity

Increase Awareness and Adoption of Women+ Connect

Lyft’s Women+ Connect is a feature that increases the likelihood that women and non-binary drivers and riders will match. The feature was highly requested by both drivers and riders, who said they felt more comfortable and connected when riding with other women.

This finding is supported by research showing that women tend to be more satisfied in jobs when they are surrounded by other women, though this may be driven by women sorting into jobs that offer them greater flexibility (such as rideshare driving).

Despite positive reviews, about half of eligible drivers were not opted in to Women+ Connect. Lyft wanted to be sure that all drivers had noticed the new feature and those who wanted to had opted in. They needed a messaging strategy to support and sustain feature adoption.

The Challenge

Capturing Attention

Drivers may have overlooked the initial product announcement for several reasons. People get an overwhelming number of push notifications and messages to their phone (a recent study found an average of 376 daily notifications!), which can lead to information overload. Within Lyft, drivers need to stay informed about incentive schedules and changing market demand, which leaves less attention for new features. Drivers also may have missed the benefits of Women+ Connect in the initial announcement, leading them to undervalue it.

To address this, Lyft wanted to test behaviorally-informed approaches to make sure all eligible drivers had noticed and understood the new feature.

The Solution

Behaviorally Informed Messages

We designed and tested three messages that aimed to increase attention and convey the key benefits of Women+ Connect:

Neutral Message: This message clearly and simply communicates the feature so busy drivers can quickly learn about it, as well as what they need to do to opt in.

Confirm Settings: This message captures attention by asking users to double check their settings. The goal is to get drivers to pause and reflect on their choices. However, we intentionally avoided more aggressive language like “verify” or “attention!” which are more aligned to mental models around potential fraud, and therefore aren’t appropriate to convey optional features.

Concreteness: This message gives a specific example of the “when and why” of the feature to make it seem more tangible and help drivers appreciate the benefit.

Control Group: We also had a control group that did not receive any messages, which gives us a point of comparison to measure the impact of sending messages.

All eligible drivers who had not opted in to the feature were randomly assigned to receive one of the three messages, or be in the control group. Drivers received a series of notifications, all using the language of their assigned message.

The Impact

Feature Engagement Increased Significantly

The core outcome we measure is driver opt-ins to Women+ Connect. The following results emerge:

All messages led to (statistically significantly) more drivers opting in to Women+ Connect. The messages increased opt-ins between 83-173% relative to the no message control group. This shows that beyond the initial announcement, extra reminders were needed to drive adoption.

One message was particularly effective: the Confirm Settings message led to 173% more opt-ins to the feature compared to the control group. This message also had the highest tap rate of any message, suggesting it was most successful at attracting attention from Women+ drivers and getting them to join the program.

Among the messages, the Concreteness message led to the fewest number of taps and opt-ins. But surprisingly, the Concreteness message was the most successful at increasing overall usage of the app. Drivers who received the Concreteness message drove more hours and started around one additional driving shift per week relative to control, though only the difference between the Concreteness and the Neutral message was statistically significant.

Lessons Learned

Key Behavioral Insights

Find innovative ways to capture attention: The Confirm Settings prompt was the most successful at catching the eye of drivers and getting them to take an initial action to opt in.
Drive overall usage with concreteness: The Concreteness message drove the biggest increase in driver hours and shift starts. This message worked by giving drivers a “when and why” for how to use the feature, which may have prompted them to think more concretely about their next ride.
Be clear on your goal: These findings show that there may be a trade off between attracting attention to a new feature, and getting people to use the feature (and the product overall) in the long term. The right behavioral tactic to apply depends on the overall goal of the messaging campaign.
Reminders matter: The success of all the messages in boosting engagement show that drivers may have missed the initial announcement about the feature. Even in this study, sending a second push notification was beneficial. The average tap rate on the first push was approximately 10%, while the second push got around 7%.

Next Steps

Refining and Expanding Behavioral Interventions

Lyft and Irrational Labs were both excited by the effectiveness of behaviorally-informed messages in driving feature adoption, and Lyft continues to leverage behavioral insights to build features and drive growth. Both the Concreteness and Confirm Settings messages are now sent as automated campaigns to frequent women and non-binary drivers. Irrational Labs’ goal is to create efficient, inclusive, and supportive environments for all users.

Special thanks to Kirsten Mauro, Robyn Bald, and the Lyft team for their collaboration in this partnership.

💡 Want to learn more about behavioral science—and how it can drive product success? Check out our Behavioral Economics Bootcamp today.