we are: London

Raising the bar?

When first opened the new Greyhound UK site speaks of a slick simplicity. The clean, cool visual design of the site gives a classy feel not normally associated with budget travel. This good first impression also extends into the usability of the site. The booking process is quick and easy and within a few clicks I have chosen my desired journey. With the release of such a seemingly slick site is Greyhound UK raising the bar for competitors such as National Express and Megabus?

Greyhound UK homepage

Visual design

While the visual design of Greyhound’s site seems far more carefully planned and thought out than the design of the Megabus site, there is far more to consider about the situation. Megabus has a developed brand and targets a specific audience. The garish blue and yellow may not be for everyone but it is instantly recognisable as Megabus, a pleasure Greyhound does not yet have in the UK. The audience Megabus targets want the cheap no frills travel that they provide. Their aim is to get from A to B for the lowest possible price, a slick website is not top priority.

Usability

The Greyhound booking process appears quick and easy but when you consider that they only busses from London to Southampton or Portsmouth and back you would expect this to be the case. A company such as National Express who cover almost all of the UK and parts of Europe has a far more complex booking system to create.

Back to the bar

The Greyhound UK site definitely brings a bit of cool competition to the budget travel site market. Users will remember the slick visual design and the ease of use and this may well drive visitors to the site. The questions is will the online experience of Greyhound UK be enough to users to switch from their well established rivals who are by no means performing poorly.

information architecture, interface design, user interface Design, e-commerce, Internet, Travel, usability

National Express Calendar

National Express launched their new portal nationalexpress.com on the 1st April along with a new lowest price fare finder.

Both were designed and tested by our usability and research teams here at we are:london and launched as part of our on-going work as National Express’ lead usability agency.

Kevin Milnes, Head of E commerce for National Express,  said:

“We set out to create a booking system with unrivalled simplicity and ease of use. The low fare finder delivers a wide range of £1 fares to the customer quickly and easily giving them the choice of when and where they want to travel within seconds.”

Read our case study or check out the National Express Group press release.

e-commerce, information architecture, interface design, market research, usability research, user centred design Design, e-commerce, Internet, Predictive, Travel, usability

Here’s a great example of how we all do things in “real life”.

Happy holidays

A recent survey of UK adults for a travel industry consortium found that nearly 70% valued word of mouth over price.

The big barriers to holiday bookings include hidden prices or extras that only appear at the final stage of booking.

A lack of contact options to find out more detail about a holiday or venue also rated a a real issue, whilst 35% of people still have trouble actually booking the holiday, having battled through all of the above.

Beach holiday anyone?

For many the above issues are know issues. Those who choose to bury their head in the sand and chuck cash at driving traffic will gain nothing in the down turn, except some difficult questions from their CFO.

Samson vs Goliath

But those who embrace the challenging market place and deliver what customers want will build loyalty now and reap the rewards as the market grows. Small firms such as Sovereign.com, with whom I jsut booked, will no doubt be best placed to take on the mass market firms like Expedia.

They have a reasonably easy to use site, great value products but more importantly a person on the other end of a phone who can tell you all the things you need to know.

What next?

The approach needed varies by company size and budget, but firstly you need to know what you customers really want, so run a survey or read their feedback or call them up and ask.

Secondly you need to provide what they want effectively; small companies can afford to employee a few people to answer phones, large companies need to invest in intelligent content presentation, driven by FAQs, search and call centre input.

Thirdly, and this has been proevn time and time again, don’t hide prices or try to trick you customers. If value is not the key decision point for them, then show the cost upfront and sell them the dream.

It works, I know as we have just parted with the better part of £3k for a holiday in Tenerife of all places.

customer insight, e-commerce e-commerce, Travel