12 recommendations to achieve high levels of booking conversions
This article was inspired by a project we recently completed for Mysa's end-to-end B2B accommodation booking platform but the advice below can be applied across many different booking journeys.
But more about the Mysa project later.
Below are 12 principles and approaches that we applied to the Mysa project, and apply to all of our digital product projects.
Jump to:
Adopt a user-centred design approach
Gain a deeper knowledge of your customer
Match your language to the customer journey
1. Adopt a user-centred design approach
Let me say this from the start. The key to success for any membership, loyalty or subscription-based product is driven by the deepest understanding of the users, customers or members.
This approach to design (user-centred design) will require all design decisions to be based on the needs of your users. Instead of having business processes dictate how you need your customers to behave, understand your customers' behaviour to change your business processes.
You know that your customers are time-poor and looking to book things quickly based on 3 details: price, location and ease of booking.
Your website shows prices and locations but your booking form takes 30 minutes to complete because your business process dictates that you need all traveller details at the point of booking.
This lengthy process will ultimately make your customer go elsewhere to a competitor's site who can help them make a booking in 3 minutes and send a follow up email asking for travellers details at a time more convenient.
Make a start by simply asking yourself, ‘Does this approach solve my customers' problems? Needs? Or answer their questions?’. If yes, you are on the right path.
2. Gain a deep knowledge of your customer
Make sure you know exactly who your customer is. Take time to research them and create personal documentation to record these findings in meaningful ways to support the wider team when making design and marketing decisions. This is a helpful tool when adopting the user centred approach mentioned above.
Personas can be as simple or complicated as you need but should always have the key goals, considerations and main frustrations of the user. A good number to start with is 3. Over time this may grow or segment as your process becomes more user-centred and your research more in depth.
3. Match your language to the customer journey
Language has such a large role to play in conversions. Everything from main page titles and supporting copy through to the micro-copy of buttons and links. You will want to pay particular attention to the text on your buttons to reflect the stage of your customers on their booking journey.
For example, while a customer is researching options via a list of properties, using ‘Book now’ for a button to move them to a property page feels very final when it simply provides more information. Without seeing any more detail about the property, using language like this creates the expectation they will see a checkout process they are not ready for because they have not seen full details of the property. This will make them nervous.
Replacing this copy with something less committed like ‘View property’ gives the customer a much more relaxing journey, delivering more information, moving them down the funnel and closer to booking.
4. Inspire trust
If someone is a referred connection you are already likely to have the trust you need. But if not, you will need to inspire trust in other ways:
Use case studies and testimonials from previous customers that highlight the experience and difference you can deliver. Perhaps you can create videos alongside written testimonials to show more authenticity? A mixture of media will cover all preferred ways of content consumption by your users.
What brands have already used you or you are associated with? Make sure to highlight these relationships. Confidently showcase those brands that trust you and by association provide more confidence to new customers.
Have you had any awards or press coverage that celebrates your company or properties? Make sure to celebrate this recognition across relevant pages on the website for new customers to take note of or read more about.
5. Simple booking journeys
When a booking journey is laboured or excessive in steps or requests, it's usually because the journey is dictated by a business process, instead of informed by customer behaviours. Many abandonments and drop-offs can be tied back to a complicated or time-consuming booking process.
To avoid this make sure you keep requests for booking information down to a minimum. What is the minimum you need to confirm a booking? Not the minimum for your CRM to market to them later down the line. You can build this picture over time if you make it easy for the user to book and rebook, lengthening the lifetime of your customer.
6. Page load speed
In a world where people expect instant access to information, page load speed is critical.
To keep on top of your page load speed you need to make sure you optimise all your assets to get the weight of your pages down for faster loading.
There are other technical and infrastructure details that you can get a web professional to look at:
using a CDN (Content Delivery Network)
the location of where your website is hosted vs your main traffic (the closer the two are the better)
reducing the amount of code, scripts and processes needed to deliver your website.
A recent statistic shows a site that loads in 1 second has an e-commerce conversion rate 2.5x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds. (Portent, 2019)
7. Know your customer: considerations, frustrations and goals hierarchy
Hopefully you have undertaken the research as mentioned in number 2 above, so you know your customer. You will, therefore, be aware of the considerations they have when purchasing, frustrations they face when booking and the goals that fuel their decisions. Each of these data points could have multiple parts to them and should be used when designing the experience.
Organise your content to reflect these needs and at timely points along the journey. If price and location is a key part to what they want to understand before exploring further, show this in the journey as soon as possible.
8. Transparent pricing
The topic of visible pricing has many different views depending on what sector or industry you work in. When it comes to booking and purchasing, pricing needs to be visible as it has such a large role to play in the decision making process for most users working within budget constraints.
Visible pricing lets those who can’t afford your product to qualify themselves out without taking up the time of your sales staff via email and phone when they could be engaging those who can afford your services. It also lets your customers who can afford you, to quickly do the maths and have the knowledge they need upfront without any effort when comparing options. Potentially comparing with others who don’t have visible pricing and making it harder for them to understand the costs and book.
9. Keep users on task
In a world of distractions we need to make sure we keep our users on task and not give them reasons to be sidelined by distractions of our own making.
Don’t design or add in unnecessary distractions that don't support the task you would like your customers to complete or the content they are consuming. For example, don’t be tempted to add animations, which are purely aesthetic and add no value to your content.
Use clear links and call to actions to move your customer through the journey so they don’t have to hunt around a page which is trying to pull their attention in a variety of ways. Keep your designs true to the task at hand. That’s not to say don’t add in design flair, just make sure the flair added supports the role of the task, content and experience without becoming the experience itself.
10. Simplify your website navigation
Simple navigation will always be key to improving conversion of those landing on your website. Ensure information is easy to find, and products easy to locate, making life easy for those using your website or app.
We can easily overwhelm customers by adding too many links into the navigation. This can cause confusion that later turns into frustration and abandonment of their journey.
11. Bear in mind that no one scrolls websites like Instagram
A behaviour we see time and time again is scrolling of feeds on platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Reddit. This behaviour does not, however, translate over to your website. This is because when people use your website they are looking for a specific piece of information in the least amount of time possible.
They don’t have the same amount of investment in your website as they do with their personally curated social media feeds made up of content they have subscribed to.
To avoid falling victim to this lack of scrolling behaviour, make sure your main call-to-actions and key information is above the fold when the user lands on your website that then moves them to the next phase of the journey.
Keep pages as short as possible to deliver more information. This will force you to consider what information is most important and remove anything that isn’t needed. This is good practice when considering a user-centred approach and keeping page load speeds down.
12. Test before you make changes
Testing is something we always recommend in our design processes.
The testing we mean is:
Usability testing - testing a prototype with the target audience to see if any unexpected behaviours occur and
Tree testing - where we can test the structure and language of navigations before any costly development is undertaken.
If you need to get the changes live and launched, then maybe you have enough traffic to test the options you have designed in the design phase of the project. It’s a great test to do when changing simple things like micro copy for calls to action or marketing messaging on landing pages to see which converts better.
Now back to Mysa...
Our work with Mysa
Who are Mysa and what do they do?
Mysa’s end-to-end B2B accommodation booking platform includes a complete online accommodation booking experience.
It is designed to offer a user-friendly interface, similar to popular consumer booking platforms, ensuring an intuitive process for travel managers.
How we worked with Mysa to create a world first for corporate global travel
We were invited by Mysa to help design a world-first B2B travel platform that improves the booking and managing of corporate travel programs rather than relying on Online Travel Agents (OTAs).
They wanted us to create a new comprehensive solution that offers travel managers an end-to-end platform to manage their property portfolios efficiently. By enabling direct access to property owners, the new platform streamlines the process of booking accommodation while reducing the need for intermediaries.
There were two key elements of note within this project:
Cross-device safety auditing tool for property managers
The new audit tool, based on the Kanban methodology, is designed to encourage the completion of audits by providing a structured and visual approach. Device-specific questions are seamlessly integrated, ensuring they appear clearly on all devices with straightforward guidance. Additionally, the bespoke user interface guarantees a responsive and consistent experience across various devices.
RFPs sent directly to property owners by travel management team
Travel managers can raise Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and send them directly to property managers, streamlining the communication process. The platform presents data in a manner that facilitates easy comparison and quick verification. Additionally, it integrates the audit and booking platforms, providing a cohesive and efficient workflow.
The project ultimately included:
1 kick off-workshop. 3 sitemaps. 42 wireframes. 1 design library. 42 page designs. 30+ components designed. 3 prototypes.
Most importantly what did our client have to say?
“We worked with Hancock & Rowe on the Mysa Digital transformation project to create a modern and cross platform solution. Hancock & Rowe did a really great job in understanding our intentions with the platform which was clearly reflected in the outcome that both myself and the team were very pleased with. They are very knowledgeable and not afraid to challenge you on design decisions."
Joakim Everstin - CTO, Mysa
Final thoughts
Our point of difference, that creates superb results for our clients, is the emphasis we put on research to deeply understand the user. This understanding forms a solid basis for our design/development briefs.
This thorough, informed, agnostic guidance and recommendations takes the assumption out of developing and improving websites and apps.
Adopting a user-centred approach will mean that you can shift away from a business first mentality that could very well be putting the hard work onto your customers. In short, asking for too much of their time.
With a user-centred approach, you can make sure their time is used valuably to increase conversions and trust.
For more insights see the following blog entries:
Want to increase booking conversions?
Book in a FREE 30 minute session with our UX Director, Jason Hancock.