Improving the cruise shopping experience

Enhancing the overall customer experience by optimizing the website and leveraging the efficiency of contact centers

Overview

Unlike most travel products, Cruise has traditionally been a very travel agent focused product. Customers go online to do their research but then prefer to book offline by calling a travel agent. Most people have a lot of questions regarding the ship, their cabin, the ports they will be visiting etc the answers for which might not readily be available at your fingertips. With the natural progression towards ecommerce, shoppers are increasingly looking to get these questions answered online as well as complete their purchases at their convenience without having to call someone.

We had recently migrated to a responsive framework without much thought into the content prioritization or having a well-defined ‘job of the page’. Following the migration, the UX team did a competitive analysis on the content hierarchy, understanding shopping behavior through a series of user research studies and proposed a multi-pronged strategy to improve the online shopping experience as well as direct qualified traffic to the call centers. Below are some screenshots of the execution that’s in progress. This is by no means completed as of yet.

Background

While online bookings are estimated to hover around 45-50% for travel products such as flights, hotels and cars, cruise has traditionally been a very travel agent focused product. Online bookings account for just 7-10% of the total orders.
The task of selecting a cruise line from several dozen brands, with several hundred ships on offer, choosing from over a thousand ports, multitude of onboard activities, thousands of shore excursions, considering scores of convoluted deck plans, and a mind-numbing number of restaurants and dining seating’s makes shopping exponentially complex.
In addition, users also must choose between securing a booking by paying a deposit or in full, make subsequent payments; choose and book flights, hotels and ground transportation for pre- and post-cruise stays, and coordinate all of this with their family and/or the larger group.
Customers go online to do their research but then prefer to book offline by calling a travel agent. Most people have a lot of questions regarding the ship, their cabin, the ports they will be visiting etc., the answers for which might not readily be available at your fingertips. With the natural progression towards ecommerce, shoppers are increasingly looking to get these questions answered online as well as complete their purchases at their convenience without having to call someone.
During the migration to a responsive framework the focus was to migrate from the old to a new and flexible technology stack without much thought put into the content prioritization or having a well-defined ‘job of the page’.

Our Approach

During the migration, the UX team conducted several usability studies to benchmark our site’s usability across our competitors: Priceline, Orbitz and Carnival.
We listened in on several calls between shoppers and call center agents to better understand pain points, call drivers, etc. The findings of this effort played a role in prioritizing our design efforts.
A comprehensive content, flow and interaction teardown exercise was conducted across major OTA’s and cruise lines to define the ‘job of the page’, content hierarchy and interaction patterns.
We sketched out a wide variety of design options, refined our options and subsequently presented refined designs to the product and engineering teams.
In addition, a multi-pronged strategy document to improve the online shopping experience as well as direct qualified traffic to the call centers where appropriate, was also delivered.
Below are some screenshots of the execution that’s currently in progress.

Cruise search results - Before

Cruise search results - After

Outcome

Initial test results have been encouraging. We are engaging customers in the shopping flow and increasing the prominence of important content where necessary.
Bounce rates at checkout have reduced as larger number of customers are confident in their purchase decisions.