Butlin's

Innovative user research informs purchase journey

The Challenge

Butlin’s, a leading family holiday provider, was looking to assess the impact of potential changes to their online accommodation booking journey. The purpose of these changes was to make sure guests were choosing the right accommodation for them.

It was important to Butlin’s that this research took on board the opinions of their target audience. To do this, Butlin’s worked with RedEye Optimisation to test three different routes to booking accommodation, using both qualitative and quantitative results.

Butlin’s was looking to compare what they do currently with the naming and grading of these three new routes, alongside how these new routes might affect the way customers choose accommodation. Three different prototype journeys were therefore tested against a control.

The Solution

It was clear Butlin’s wanted to take a unique approach to this research, at RedEye Optimisation we are equipped to help our clients carry out UX Research in a way that suits their business needs.

RedEye Optimisation’s User Experience team got to work creating the prototypes needed and putting together the questions for the three different surveys that would be asked throughout the booking process, which were:

Understanding the guest
Confidence survey
Final comparison

RedEye recruited over 200 participants to take part in the project over the course of three weeks. All participants were recruited to match the profile of a Butlin’s customer or prospect. The research started with a survey to understand the accommodation needs of the user. This was followed by the task of selecting a suitable accommodation type on a prototype where one of four routes was shown to the user. The prototype (built by RedEye Optimisation’s developers) allowed the user to move backwards and forwards until they found their preferred accommodation.

Next, we asked users to take a follow-up survey which explored the ease of use, understanding and confidence in the choices made during the task.

Finally, the users completed a last set of questions that gave us insight into the options they might have picked had they been shown one of the other prototypes – allowing us to get a top-level comparison of all four options.

The Results

A blend of behavioural and attitudinal data meant that the report put together by the RedEye Optimisation UX team was comprehensive, looking in-depth at both the task results and participants’ responses to the task. The report looked at the users’ journey directness, speed, upgrade ratings, ease of use, final selection etc.

RedEye Optimisation was able to create a report that worked alongside Butlin’s business needs. This included being able to isolate responses from users who had previously visited a resort to show how knowing the Butlin’s experience could affect their accommodation choices.

A wealth of interesting data came through from this research which, coupled with our expertise, was presented back to Butlin’s as insightful recommendations and useful advice.

“We have been working with RedEye Optimisation for years which means they know our customers and prospects pretty well! We were looking to carry out some unique user experience research to drive decisions about our accommodation booking journey. The research generated tons of useful insights and recommendations that we can implement before our project goes live.
It was invaluable!”
Web Experience Manager, Butlin's

We saw an opportunity to increase email sign-ups following the removal of our digital guide, so we worked with the team at RedEye to develop various test ideas. With each iteration we kept the visitor front of mind and tried to make the experience easy and worthwhile which showed in the amazing results.
Web Marketing Manager, Butlin's