Interislander
Interislander, a road and rail ferry service, which transports passengers, vehicles and commercial freight between the North and South Islands of New Zealand is an international attraction that has been a NZ institution for over 60+ years. Owned and operated by KiwiRail, the Interislander is often described as the “world’s most iconic ferry trip”.
The original online booking system was launched more than a decade ago (back when the concept of purchasing tickets via a website was still relatively new). While there have been some modifications over the years, the site has not been fully optimised to meet the evolving requirements of new technology and customer expectations.
Subsequent consumer trends have shown an increase in mobile bookings and customers booking directly rather than through third party agents. Seeing the potential to improve conversion rates, KiwiRail initiated a UX overhaul of the public bookings site, turning to Sandfield's Edge team.
In order to narrow the focus of possible system improvements, Interislander reviewed internal analytics and customer feedback to pinpoint opportunities for enhancements. The suggested updates from this research included:
Implementing mobile-responsive design
Modernising the look and feel, with accessibility at the forefront
Showing upfront pricing, especially with promo code and discount code application
Streamlining the user journey to only show customers relevant pages and fields to their booking
Decreasing the time taken to create and complete a booking
Janet Skilton, Interislander Digital Marketing Manager, sums up what they learned:
"We examined the data behind the booking system and what stood out right away was that a lot of users, especially those on mobile devices were dropping off the booking process before completing it.”
Working with KiwiRail and their design partners, the Edge Team transformed the booking experience so that people could purchase ferry tickets in a way that was quicker and more intuitive and similarly effective for both on PC and mobile devices.
There were a number of parameters the project had to work within, including:
Maintaining all of the pre-existing ticketing options.
Providing greater upfront pricing visibility for people using promo/discount codes.
Improving the analytics accuracy, and quality of data captured, to enable better insights.
Aligning with the existing Interislander system framework, which serves a wide array of users who carry out a variety of tasks.
Ensuring that other areas of the business were not impacted by the updated booking engine was a key goal for the project team. As Edge Project Manager Kaitlyn Chessum describes, “The great challenge of this project was accounting for all affected end users. The booking site impacts not only customers but also has flow-on effects for the Interislander operations team, call centre, marketing team, and third-party agents.”
Sandfield’s previous experience with the system and institutional knowledge was key to helping Interislander minimise these possible impacts.
The new booking interface provides customers with a more efficient and cohesive ticketing experience. Some of the more noteworthy improvements that were implemented are:
Condensed booking form: The number of pages/steps has been reduced from ten to four.
Optimised mobile interface: The mobile interface has been updated to reflect the principles of the desktop design, with a corresponding reduction in steps and time required
Enhanced pricing visibility: The field for promo/discount codes was moved to the beginning of the process so customers can instantly determine discount and promo pricing impacts.
Automated address population: The automated address picker greatly reduces the time users need to complete the address field.
Improved analytics: Server-side tagging in Google Analytics supplies more nuanced customer insights. These include detailed reporting on journey details, passenger information, ticket extras, insurance data and promo/discount code usage.
The key takeaway from these improvements?
Since the launch of the new site KiwiRail have tracked an 8% improvement in conversion rates.
The new booking engine has become a key part of the Interislander customer online experience, ultimately resulting in more straightforward transactions and increased revenue.
“Based on the data we’re looking at, the booking time has basically halved from what it was before. This reduction in time has happened during our peak season when people often have to play with multiple dates as many of the sailings are sold out, so we believe if anything this reduction in time is potentially being under-reported.” says Skilton.
While the team had to work to tight timeframes and bumped into a number of technical obstacles during the course of the project, the close collaboration between KiwiRail and Edge meant that the team could meet its objectives and still go live prior to Interislander’s peak season kicking off.
Sandfield's Edge team enjoying a tour of the Interislander post go-live
One of the things that the Edge team takes pride in is offering their customers solutions and software that allow them to differentiate themselves from the competition. The redesigned booking system doesn’t just make life easier for Interislander’s customers, it reinforces Interislander’s dedication to technology innovation.