Next Best Actions
Trainline had long focused on making booking easy. But once users were actually travelling, the experience could be dissapointing. In-travel NPS was low, driven by moments of stress and uncertainty during disruptions. Delays, missed connections, and unclear next steps left users feeling abandoned.
Our goal was to close that gap: to make Trainline not just a ticketing app, but a trusted travel companion — one that could guide users through disruption, reduce frustration, and ultimately increase retention.
The problem
Travel disruptions were outside Trainline’s control, but the experience of disruption wasn’t. Without clear advice, users were left to navigate complex rail rules on their own — whether it was claiming compensation, finding an alternative train, or simply reassuring friends they’d be late.
We framed the challenge as a simple hypothesis: if we surfaced contextual “next best actions” at the right moment, we could reduce stress, improve NPS, and earn user trust.
We began with compensation, because nothing erodes trust faster than being left out of pocket. Instead of hiding Delay Repay in support pages, we embedded predictions directly inside Trainline’s Live Tracker — the one place users already looked when delays happened. This integration was deliberate: it reduced cognitive load, meeting users exactly in the flow of their journey.
The bolder move was to predict the actual compensation amount in real time. At the time, even carriers weren’t doing this in their own products. By surfacing not just the rule (“after 30 minutes you may be eligible”) but the estimated payout in euros, we made an opaque process tangible. This transparency transformed a negative event into a moment of reassurance: users could see exactly what they stood to receive, rather than waiting in frustration.
-> V2 — Missed Connection Advice
The next frontier was missed connections — one of the most stressful moments for travelers. The rules were notoriously opaque: would the next train wait? Could they board a later departure? What should they say to a crew member?
Previously, users had to dig through help articles or FAQ pages to find this information, often while standing on a crowded platform with poor connectivity. With NBA, we flipped the model: the guidance appeared directly in the Live Tracker, at the exact moment it was needed.
Instead of vague alerts, travelers received clear, actionable advice: which rights applied, what steps to take, and which trains they could board. This design decision transformed NBA from a notification system into a genuine decision-making assistant, removing the friction of hunting for information at the worst possible time.
In rarer cases, waiting wasn’t enough. When no Railteam alliance trains were available, or when we could confirm a missed connection couldn’t be resolved by staff, NBA escalated into direct action. Here, the UI presented specific alternative trains and allowed users to switch in one tap. This turned NBA into a true problem-solver, collapsing what used to be a confusing multi-step process into a single, confident decision.
The purchase flow was all happening under the hood, giving the delightful impression to users that an exchange process was truly one-tap.
Results
NBA proved that small, well-placed interventions could shift some of the hardest metrics to move. 80% of users rated the advice as useful, and in-travel NPS lifted by +2.1pp — clear evidence that reassurance in moments of disruption builds trust.
The impact went beyond numbers. NBA became a new product standard at Trainline: what started with delay predictions has since expanded into connection guidance, rebooking, and ETA sharing. By turning disruption into confidence, NBA helped redefine Trainline as a true travel companion.
