Digital marketing company, Group Dane has worked closely with the team at the Beaufort Park Hotel to develop a highly customer-focussed website, which not only helps to deliver an exceptional online experience, but also successfully achieves the business objectives. Take a look at how they did it – there may be useful lessons for your own website, and revenues…
Improved online experience for customers
Beaufort Park Hotel in Mold, North Wales recently won Best Place to Stay at the Flintshire Food and Tourism Awards, and is aiming to mirror the success of their accommodation offering with a high quality online experience.
Susan Warnock, Beaufort Park Hotel General Manager said, “Our website is often the first line of contact with new customers, so it’s important that we immediately send out a message that customer experience is at the heart of our business.”
Asking the audience and setting the focus
Using web analytics, customer research and market intelligence, Group Dane developed a series of web personas that reflected key audience segments. The personas were then used to inform content, structure and design decisions across the site. Real customers were used at various stages of the development process to test the website to ensure the site was delivering the best user experiences.
Going mobile friendly
Web analytics data for the old site revealed that a high volume of the websites users were accessing it on mobile devices, but because the old website wasn’t mobile friendly, the layout didn’t adjust to smaller screen sizes which made it more difficult to use the website.
Group Dane built the site so the layout automatically responds to the size of the user’s screen, which ensures the website always displays perfectly whether accessed on a mobile, tablet or desktop computer.
Opening with a close
For some customers, the decision to book has already been made, so it is important the website is geared to close the sale quickly. To make booking as quick and simple as possible, the form is placed at the top of every page, allowing customers to check availability without having to leave the page. Reducing the number of page loads in the journey is particularly beneficial to mobile users, who may have a slower internet connection.
Giving customers what they want…quickly
Web analytics data revealed that, on the old site, some of the most popular content was buried deep within the site structure, forcing users to take more steps and work harder to find what they were looking for.
On the new website, both the page and the site structures are tailored for the main customer motivations, forming simple and satisfying user journeys that also deliver on business objectives.
Simplifying enquiries
At various points, there are opportunities for customers to request information rooms, services, dining and events. Rather than presenting users with multiple forms for different queries, there is one form that dynamically responds to the users’ query automatically depending on their enquiry.
Customers value sharing
Customers often want to share specific information with friends and colleagues for practical or social reasons. To make it easy for customers to share information via social networks or email, specific elements on every page of the site are shareable.
For more information about Group Dane click here
For more information about Beaufort Park Hotel click here
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