Just spotted on the net:
Digital agency, Splendid has been hired by easyJet to help transform the low-cost airline’s website customer experience.
Activity will focus on consumers who visit the easyJet site with a set budget but uncertain of when and where they want to travel.
From its inception, easyJet has led the market through its use of the internet as a ticket distribution channel. It is now looking to the future and redefining its travel portal to offer customers a more intuitive web experience.
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”Only 40% of our customers know precisely when and where they want to go when they visit our site,” says Paul Curtis, Head of Application Architecture at easyJet.
“That leaves as many as 60% of customers looking for inspiration and ideas, and who would consider varying dates and offers. Customers often have a set budget in mind, but are open to new destinations. Most travel portals don’t support these people, and customers spend a lot of time searching around for the best deals.”
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A customer who is less sure of their destination can specify the dates they’d like to travel and their preferred departure location. The map then identifies all the locations they can travel to within those dates and displays fares in real time without the customer having to submit multiple searches.
Using Silverlight, Splendid incorporated a sliding bar to the left of the screen, which helps the user to set their budget for that trip, moving the slider up or down reveals or hides destinations according to their cost criteria.
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”easyJet wanted to explore customer needs throughout the travel lifecycle”, explains Paul Bishop, Managing Director of Splendid. “Using the findings from a programme of user experience research, we were able to map out their journeys and explore whether rich applications could be used to increase the number of flights booked, build customer loyalty and develop new revenue streams.”
In addition to the destination finder, one final concept is a fare finder that gives the user the total price for their party, and lets them flip through different dates easily without resubmitting a query and a chart that helps the customer find the cheapest dates to travel if they’re unsure of their destination.
It is expected that once rolled out, the new site will transform the customer experience of easyJet in 2008. It is hoped the new technologies and intuitiveness implemented offers users far greater flexibility when booking online than competitors can provide, attracting new customers and ultimately resulting in far more bookings with easyJet.
Source:
netimperative