Hornblower: Checkout
My Role
UX writer, content design, information architecture
The Problem
A 90% cart abandonment rate is not something you want to hear. However, when you require a customer to create an account before checkout only for them to be met with a 12-page checkout process, it’s not surprising. Welcome to the old Hornblower.com checkout. It wasn’t great. Like I said, 90% abandonment.
While the original ask was implementing an automated email when a customer left mid-checkout, I’m a firm believer in tackling the source of the problem. I worked alongside our dev team and product managers to create a checkout process that wouldn’t leave 90% of our customers abandoning ship. (You work around boats, you get really good at sea puns)
Specifically, we wanted to tackle the following problems:
The site required customers to create an account before beginning checkout
There was no way to upgrade with a package or specify dietary needs
Customer couldn’t see the total price until the very end
The Solution
With user recordings, I was able to see that we lost most of our customers at the very start when they were required to create an account. From there, I conducted interviews with users as well as our sales managers to see what an ideal checkout process would look like for them. Users were most concerned about including any specific needs (dietary, disability, etc) and seeing the full price upfront. Our sales managers wanted customers to add on packages during the checkout process. Both sides mentioned a way to manage reservations. From there, we revised the checkout process to include:
No account required to purchase or manage reservations
Dedicated section for dietary needs, special occasions, any disabilities
Ability to include package add-ons
Price featured alongside checkout with up-to-date cost, including all fees.
Results
Increase in online sales
Decrease in cart abandonment rate
Upselling resulted in larger individual sales
On the backend, the checkout process stores into a spreadsheet for crew members to use for boarding information. Before, they had to document manually.
Key Takeaways
Customers want to know how long something is going to take them, which we solved by having every step listed on one page. They also wanted transparency in pricing, so the price updated as they moved through checkout, including pier fees.
This process also revealed just how much unnecessary extra work the cruise crew and our customer support was doing, from manually noting any needs to dealing with any upgrades or reservation changes themselves. Our team was able to create a better user experience not just for our customers, but for our team too.