Flight Centre Cruise eCommerce

Stakeholder

Flight Centre

Years

2019-2020

Role

UX/UI design

In 2018 a new cruise booking platform was launched on the Flight Centre website. The platform was designed to be a replacement for the Cruise About brand when it merged with Flight Centre.

After the booking platform was live for six months the product owner wanted to improve conversion rates, so I was tasked to help find any potential opportunities to improve the cruise experience for Flight Centre customers. I was the only designer in my team, working with the product owner and two developers. I also collaborated with designers in other teams to broaden my insights from their learnings in their niches.

Product goals

1
Give customers an amazing experience online throughout the dreaming, planning and booking phases.
2
Increase click through and conversion rates on the cruise eCommerce platform.
3
Provide Flight Centre consultants in stores with better quality cruise enquiries.

Approach

1
Features were to be prioritised based on value for the customer through their feedback.
2
Lean, MVP approach. Staggered release of features, iterating to refine solutions.
3
Gather feedback and monitor sentiment using customer surveys throughout the process.
4
Run A/B tests to trial new ideas and validate on the fly.

Research methods

Customer feedback (enquires & surveys)
Pattern research for existing mental models
Behavioural data in Google Analytics
Cruise market research analysis
Travel industry insights

Example of a cruise customer feedback survey

Customer research

I spent time gathering feedback and insights through quantitative customer surveys with Usabilla, sourcing behavioural data in Google Analytics, email enquiries from the cruise eCommerce platform, and gathering qualitative feedback from customer interviews that were conducted after the platform was initially released.

“What’s included in the cost of the cruise?”
“Just wondering if it comes with the drinks package?”
“I don’t know where I want to go - not much inspiration.”
“Can you send me some pictures of the cabin and bathroom?”
“Is that pricing per person?”
“I’m not sure what the letter keys represent, please excuse if I’ve done something wrong.”

Customer feedback from surveys and enquiries

Research findings

Not enough information about the cruise

The cruise platform had been designed to follow the same layout as hotel products on the website. As cruise product is more complex than hotels, this meant there was not enough information for customers to feel confident to book online. This was also evident after performing a competitor analysis.

The price messaging was confusing

On the search results and top of the product page pricing was listed as a ‘per person’ rate, however when selecting a cabin on the product page, the price changed to a total amount which was confusing our customers.

Lacking in opportunities for up-sells

Many customers were requesting add-ons to their cruise such as drinks packages. These were not available as the cruise platform did not offer any upgrades to the standard fares on offer.

Testing and validating

In order to test ideas early on, we ran proof of concepts as A/B tests with Optimizely to validate our hypotheses and ensure the improvements were on the right track for our customers.

It was important to get the price messaging right, so this was compared using an A/B test to see how it would perform with our customers.

Solutions

Consistency around price messaging

After researching and rethinking how prices should be communicated throughout the cruise flow, the A/B test we ran with the new design saw a 15% improvement on the original.

Added fare grades into the booking flow

Similar to airlines, cruise fares upgrade bookings with on board credit, WiFi and drinks packages. We received many requests for this from our customers, so after it was released we saw cruise bookings increase month on month.