BookingCounts Case Study: Flybe

Background

Flybe is the largest regional airline in Europe and the only one to fly from Dublin, Ireland to the stunning (and green) Donegal area in the north west. They are competing with the big discount European carriers such as Ryanair and EasyJet for the attention of Ireland and UK travelers going to a variety of cool cities and sunshine holiday destinations.

To promote their upstanding travel reputation, the website must offer ways to sign-up and connect using a variety of popular social media options.  That way visitors can chose their preferred form of travel marketing communications whether it happens to be email, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever new social networking site comes next.

As someone that appreciates the ability to sign-up for an email newsletter to receive special travel deals and offers (I am always happy to receive inspiration for my next trip waiting for me in my inbox), my first goal was to seek out that feature.  Lucky for me I quickly located the “Subscribe to our email list” link right on their home page (www.flybe.com).  This page is the focus of this case study and the BookingCounts Tourism Website Optimization analysis.

BookingCounts Analysis

At first glance, Flybe succeeds in offering multiple ways to stay informed with a set of recognizable “Social bookmarking” links to the most popular sharing sites.

However after clicking the Twitter link, the resulting page could not be found (fortunately the Twitter link on their home page worked perfectly).  Next I tried to use the Facebook button to view their Business Page, but unfortunately this only let me post a link to Flybe on my wall and not ‘Like’ their brand and (if I so desire) share with my friends.

Finally I decided to go ahead and sign up for their email newsletter which was my primary goal to begin with, but was a bit dismayed to be asked to complete a lengthy and complex form simply to be informed about travel deals and promotions.  I am a busy person after all

The Flybe Email Newsletter form (“Special offers email”) asks (from a customer perspective) irrelevant questions like Date of Birth, Occupation, and Email Client.  Why?

While most of these are optional, it makes the form appear daunting to a new prospect.  Plus a typical travel planning consumer that is cautious about internet security might wonder:

a) How will this information be used to send me offers?
b) Will my personal information be stored securely?
c) Do you intend to send me information by postal mail too?

It has been proven that a lengthy subscription form with many required fields makes it much less likely that a visitor will sign up and share their personal information with any company.  Since that is the most important marketing goal for a “Subscribe to Deals” page, it is a best practice to remove all roadblocks to completing a travel deals subscription form.

On a positive note, it is excellent to see the Flybe.com Privacy Policy linked to the bottom, however I wish it were instantly clear how ones postal or email address will be shared with other companies in the future.

One other issue with this page concerns content freshness which is a key component of promoting the online reputation of a tourism business.  The list of Email Clients offered in the drop down list is sorely out of date.

The list offers options that were popular with consumers years ago such as Lotus Notes, Netscape, and Eudora, but is missing top ranking email clients Yahoo! mail, Gmail (Google), and Apple Mail (including iPhone, iPad). Too many visitors will be forced to select “Other” instead of proudly picking their preferred email client software.

Finally the sign-up form gives users the always dangerous “Clear” button at the bottom.  This button does more harm than good as I’m sure that I’m not the only person ever to fill out a web form only to click “Clear” instead of “Submit” by mistake which is a most frustrating experience.

External Resources

ConversionXL posted a lengthy article giving you not 10, but 14 Steps to Building Sign-up Forms That Convert, including proof of how reducing the number of fields leads to more people signing up.

Campaign Monitor posted some very useful statistics on the breakdown of the email clients recipients had when opening and reading email messages sent and tracked on behalf of their clients.  Email client popularity: June 2011

Action Items

Based on the Tourism Website Optimization analysis done by BookingCounts, the following improvements are recommended in order to increase online travel reputation and get more bookings.

1. Modify the subscribe to email offers form to only request email and optionally name and preferred airport.
2. Make it possible to update a user’s profile afterwards to include additional information as required by Flybe to deliver  travel products and services to their customers.
3. Edit the email client drop down list to include the most popular email clients in use today, or remove it entirely if it is no longer a necessary piece of consumer information to collect.
4. Add links to the Facebook Business Page and Twitter account on the subscribe page as an alternative way for visitors to ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ Flybe.com (the Social Bookmarking icons are useful for sharing on most other pages).

Conclusion

Overall Flybe has a well-designed and visually appealing website that is easy to navigate and very easy to find and book flights (and they have some great deals too!).  By making these improvements to their email newsletter sign-up page, they can encourage more visitors to subscribe and follow right away.  This in turn will make it much more likely that subscribers who are planning their next holiday will be convinced book their flights with Flybe right from the start!

I hope they implement the BookingCounts tourism website optimization recommendations and best practices then report back their results in the comments below.