Turning Loyal Customers into Growth Engines for Rohlik
Rohlik needed a sustainable, low-CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) channel to acquire first-time users. As the lead Product Designer, I partnered with the Product Owner to build a comprehensive Referral Program from scratch. My role extended beyond UI/UX; I was deeply involved in defining the business logic, validating the value proposition, and designing the end-to-end marketing assets. The feature was successfully rolled out across 5 European markets.
Project: Rohlik Referral Program
Role: Product Designer (Lead) + Business Development Support
Platform: iOS, Android, Web
Scope: 5 Countries (International Rollout)
Rohlik needed a sustainable, low-CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) channel to acquire first-time users. As the lead Product Designer, I partnered with the Product Owner to build a comprehensive Referral Program from scratch.
My role extended beyond UI/UX; I was deeply involved in defining the business logic, validating the value proposition, and designing the end-to-end marketing assets. The feature was successfully rolled out across 5 European markets.
Scaling trust
Rohlik has a highly loyal customer base. The business hypothesis was simple: Happy customers are our best salespeople. However, our existing growth channels were becoming expensive. We needed a system that was:
Frictionless: Sharing a code had to take seconds.
Flexible: Capable of handling different reward logic (Two-sided vs. One-sided) and seasonal campaigns (Limited time offer for double the reward).
Omnichannel: Present across the entire user journey, not just hidden in a "Footer" menu.
Discovery & Business Proposition
I worked with the PO to model different reward structures. We analyzed competitors and behavioral psychology to determine the most effective motivators:
The "Self-interested" Approach: Reward the Referrer only.
The "Win-Win" Approach: Rewards for both.
Key Decision: We chose to build a flexible backend that allowed us to toggle these strategies per market or campaign, rather than hard-coding a single logic. This approach gave us leverage when dealing with referral abuse so we could easily switch it on and off.
Design Process & Validation
Prototyping & Testing
I created high-fidelity wireframes to test the flow with users. Due to our design system, building something is super easy and with the power of AI we were able to move fast and test actual prototypes that were working.
The Solution: A Multi-Touchpoint Ecosystem
I designed a system that integrated the referral program into the natural lifecycle of the grocery shopper:
Dedicated Landing Page (App & Web): The central hub. The landing page had two states which we decided to implement mainly as a fraud prevention.
The "10-Order" Qualification Threshold" To ensure sustainable growth, we implemented a qualification gate: customers could only unlock their referral capabilities after completing 10 orders within 12 months. This strategic constraint served a dual purpose. First, it acted as a fraud prevention mechanism against self-referral abuse. Second, it functioned as a behavioral incentive, turning the 'Referrer' status into an earned milestone that motivated newer users to increase their shopping frequency to unlock the feature."
A clean dashboard showing current credits earned and a clear CTA to share via WhatsApp, Messenger, or Email.
Post-Purchase Success Screen: Capitalizing on the "high" of finishing a shop to suggest sharing.
Homepage Banners: Seasonal visuals to drive awareness.
Profile Section: Permanent housing for the feature.
Push Notifications: I designed notifications triggering users they hit the milestone of passing 10 orders and than multiple notifications to remind users about this possibility.
Newsletters: Created templates for CRM teams to announce the program and also inform user about unlocked referral program.
Copywriting: I collaborated on the micro-copy to ensure it felt friendly and "Rohlik-native," rather than transactional with our marketing team.
Rollout & Experimentation
We released the feature to all customers across 5 countries. We ran A/B tests on the reward strategies:
Variant A (Win-Win): Reward for Referrer + Referee.
Variant B (Self interest): Reward for Referrer only.
Variant C (Urgency): The Countdown Timer with boosted rewards.
Key Takeaways
Design is Business: Understanding the unit economics of the rewards allowed me to design a UI that prioritized the right metrics.
Holistic Ownership: By designing the marketing assets alongside the product interface, we created a seamless user experience.
Scalability: Designing for 5 markets meant accounting for varying currency formats, language lengths, and cultural attitudes toward sharing.