Inghams takes a trip with SciVisum’s user journeys

With over an extremely high percentage of its business delivered over the Internet, Inghams is using SciVisum and its unique user journey approach to monitoring to cultivate the very best performance from its website.

Inghams, established in 1934, is one of the UK's leading specialist tour operators. The company relies on its website to deliver a holiday search and booking service to customers who are looking for Ski and Snowboarding, Lakes and Mountains, Spa and Family holidays or flights only. The company also provides a dedicated web area for Travel Agents.

Sheetal Patel, Website Administrator says,

“When looking for a website monitoring service, we looked at the market and found that competitive systems wanted us to repeat the same test over and over, which just didn’t work. In contrast, SciVisum’s tests are dynamic and use the site semi-randomly around the core money-making routes, just like our customers.”

Need

“We need to ensure the site is working at optimum levels and delivering a smooth and efficient service to our customers at all times. We also require a tool that delivers easy-to-understand reports on that performance for review by the web team and others in the company.”

Solution

Inghams first tested SciVisum’s Dynamic User Journeys in the summer 2010 and then started working with them in the October. Inghams now has six user journeys running across the website that mirror the journeys taken by its customers.

SciVisum’s tests start at the initial search page and then go through various stages until the final booking. Each journey follows a similar format but the search selections changes, as does the route, depending on the particular website area such as Ski and Snowboarding, Lakes and Mountains, Spa Holiday, Family holidays, flights only or the Agent site.

“Within a few hours of using SciVisum’s unique journey tests, it immediately found an error.  One particular search was defaulting to a flight rather than an accommodation which would be very annoying for a customer. SciVisum found the fault very quickly and we fixed it immediately. Without SciVisum, this error would never have been found.”

Whenever there is an issue, SciVisum issues an alert. Inghams’ alerts usually relate to information that is not showing as expected – such as a property that is available for rent saying that it is not bookable. This is particularly relevant when Inghams launches a new brochure with full availability for different countries, hotels and departure dates. They often receive a series of alerts from SciVisum regarding performance cut-offs – this is when the user has to wait more than say 30 seconds to undertake a particular journey.

“We can now identify the cause of these cut-offs by eliminating different routes and then rechecking the system. And when cut-offs are caused by 3rd-supplier parts of our sites, we can use SciVisum’s reports to prove that our supplier's system is at fault and ensure they rectify the situation. In one case, we found that our booking engine supplier had made some changes that caused a considerable slow-down – an issue that could have gone un-noticed for sometime. SciVisum enables us to remedy the situation fast.”

Benefits

Sheetal continues, “SciVisum gives us the confidence that the site is working correctly. It is extremely easy to use and if an error occurs, we are notified and can rectify the situation immediately. What it really means is that we can continually fine-tune the website.

“We particularly value SciVisum’s live status display,” she continues. “It provides a snapshot of the journeys and enables us to prove that performance is good. For example, the other day, I received an email (with a couple of senior staff copied in) telling me that we hadn’t received any bookings during a particular evening. They had assumed the website wasn’t working and the booking engine had failed.

“Obviously, if something had failed, the service would have given us notification. I was therefore able to share screenshots of the live status reports and prove that nothing was wrong with the website and booking engine. This is where SciVisum’s reporting is invaluable.”

Like all SciVIsum clients Inghams also provides input into new features for the SciVisum monitoring service. Sheetal explains, “The team at SciVisum is always open to suggestions, and most recently, we asked if we could review performance across a longer historical period, and if we could introduce success thresholds for each individual step of a user journey, with alerting where any slowdown occurs." Both of these features were recently implemented and rolled out for the use of all clients.

For organisations that succeed or fail based on the integrity of complex, frequently changing inventory content and the validity of the multi sourced real-time data the SV-Monitoring Suite delivers true business focused monitoring and reporting that enables all teams to understand the
impact of site performance on the bottom line.

In a world of complex pricing models, intricate business logic, multiple technologies with sophisticated interface requirements and practically limitless combinations of variables the SV-Monitoring suite delivers the crucial insights and information needed by your technical and business teams to identify and correct any problems before real users experience them.

When problems with content databases mean that users cannot access your inventory then they cannot buy your products and services. One frustrating user experience often means a potential customer will never return.

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