User Experience Case Study | Trip.com

To identify problems and/or opportunities from users for sg.trip.com and provide solutions based on user experiences through the research process

UX Techniques used in this project
Shadowing | Fly-on-the-wall | Interviews | Affinity Diagram | Survey | A/B Testing | Personas |Customer Journey Map

Role
interviews, note-taking, film documentation, survey, research of macro trends, reviews, ratings, articles, statistical data, case studies, competitor platforms analysis and provide recommendations through research insights

Introduction
Trip.com have over 400 million members, more than 1.4 million hotels in 200 countries and regions, flight network with over 2 million individual flight routes.

300,000 Singaporeans used the SingapoRediscovers Vouchers scheme (SRV) to make bookings with hotels, attractions, and tours, spending S$35.9 million in voucher redemptions and out-of-pocket payments as of Jan 1.

Despite being one of the appointed agent that allow purchase using SRV, only 3 out of 85 people booked through Trip.com before.

Top choice of booking platform that users prefer would be Agoda, booking.com & Klook. With the use of SGRediscovers, 75% use Klook for the redemption

Top 3 criteria when consumers select their booking platform
1. Promotion & discount
2. No hidden cost
3. Reviews from past goers

When compared between the 5 vendors available to use SG Rediscover voucher, Trip.com did not offer better promotion/pricing which could be a deciding factor for price sensitive consumers which could contribute to why users are not converting their brand loyalty.

During my comparison research done on Google, Trip.com was not appearing as often as compared to its competitors, This could be a reason why users are not exposed to the brand.

Key Insights Summary
Some research using UX techniques like shadowing, fly-on-the-wall and interviews was conducted.

Summarized insights:
01 | Brand Loyalty
Users have their preferred choice of agent therefore are not open to use Trip.com as their regular booking site

02 | Interface
Understandable, straight forward functions with sufficient information on site

03 | Marketing on site
Too pushy with pop up and ”forced” membership that affect their overall experiences

04 | Decision making
Users relied heavily on the images on site, especially those taken by past visitors as well as reviews

A/B Testing

Based on the initial interview, users usually visit the site with their choices in mind and a clear understanding of what to click on.

During the interview, users point out that the site is messy with too much going on.

65.9% selected the version that is less clustered with more straightforward information.

Based on the test, the overall visuals direction on site are suitable and comfortable for users except in terms of product thumbnails and information. A cleaner direction is preferred.

Based on some comments made during the interviews conducted, these questions were included in the survey to find out if the comments were biased.

The results turn out to be different from the comments received during the interviews. As the percentage still goes up to 44.7%, the concerns should still be taken into consideration but not in priority.

Mobile App
Users will download mobile app of the brand on their own accord, therefore we can go easy on the pushing of mobile app ad.

Mobile/Web Browser
48.2% still use web browser for their purchase even though they are currently very dependent on mobile devices.

Senior Users
Majority of senior users require assistance to complete their purchase or redeem SRV. It could be a good area to explore reaching this group of audience.

Decision Making
Images play a big part in the decision process throughout the whole research, surprisingly more than the pressing pop ups that are already in place.

Brand Loyalty
The results are all fairly wide-spread, therefore would consider all factors involved with a pinch of salt.

Based on the users interviewed, I created persona of Samantha who is a marketing assistant manager and a frequent traveller. She spend reasonably, and look out for deals and sites that offer rebates. Whenever she decided to splurge, she would check out deals on burpple to make sure it is value for money. She limit and keep track of her spending.

I did a customer journey map based on Samantha and identified some of the following pain points.

Based on survey & people interviewed, the users tend to be analytical, careful, comparing prices, using filters but focused and aware of what they want to go for.

Therefore these users will not look at suggestions/pop up when they are in the midst of their search, coming to the site with a goal in mind.

Highlighting the pain points users faced on site:
1. Member-only rates requiring users to make effort becoming members
2. Same room, same hotel but only one of it is eligible for SRV which users may miss out

3. Numerous pop ups on site prompting users to become a member can make them feel irritated.

4. Not allowing users to see what are the options available based on their searched hotel location to make a comparison

Recommendation for the brand
01 | Competitive prices
Always try to be the best price/with the best offer, a slight price difference would be significant enough to make a convert

02 | User Reward
• Reward users when they verify images provided by the hotel after the stay
• Reward users when they share their reviews on site, bonus for those with their own images

This will help other users make choices, encourage returning users and build brand loyalty within the brand

03 | Search Optimizer
Invest in optimizing search to become one of the top choice when people search for attractions/stay

Recommendation for the Interface
01 | Pop Ups
Reduce the use of pop ups. 54.1% of the users think that beautiful images are sufficient to help them make decision for their booking

02 | Pushy Membership
Remove use of pushy membership ads and “sign-in only” gimmick so users can feel more confident with the brand. Allow genuine users to become members willingly

03 | Personalised Recommendation
Simplify and reduce information on site to only include what users currently need. Free up the space on site for proposing other possible attractions that may interest users based on their search interest

04 | Clean interface, nice visuals
Users pointed out that clean interface and nice visuals give them the impression that the site is more reliable

Recommendation for products targeting families
01 | Family-oriented bundles
89.4% of users are between 20–40 years old. Responsible age that will consider family-related activities when using the site to bring their parents or kids.

Apart from using SRV as a couple, many of them point out they used the vouchers as a family

02 | Senior friendly site
88.1% of user’s parents require assistance when booking. This could be a possible expansion to look at for new pool of users.

Conclusion
The overall research experience had been fruitful, discovering more than just information about the interface but also learnt more regarding the brand and the products offered.