Meraki are a team of globetrotters who have extensively travelled the world learning the whats, wheres and whens to go of travel! They understand today’s fully independent travellers want the ability to design their own trips and have the flexibility to research and tailor as they go. Delivering this service is core to the Meraki ethos and this all comes with ABTA and ATOL protection too.
Meraki Travel came to Zolv with a big vision. Tailor-made, being so complex, has traditionally been call centre only. The challenge Meraki put forward was to transfer this into the world of online bookings. To achieve this Meraki needed to appoint a technology specialist such as Zolv, who would have the expertise to build what would be a technically complicated booking platform.
This wasn’t the first time Zolv have tackled the challenge of putting tailor-made travel online. Having built www.bcferriesvacations.com in 2012, we had already learnt a lot about the challenges of selling in this way online. Bringing this experience to the Meraki project gave us greater visibility on the best way to approach the project and how to avoid common pitfalls, saving valuable time and resources.
Zolv started with a full user-experience prototyping to establish a clear vision of how the user experience would work, mapping out the various journeys, touch points and general website flow. Working alongside Meraki's brand agency, we then applied the creatives onto these wireframes.
This wasn’t the first time Zolv have tackled the challenge of putting tailor-made travel online. Having built www.bcferriesvacations.com in 2012, we had already learnt a lot about the challenges of selling in this way online. Bringing this experience to the Meraki project gave us greater visibility on the best way to approach the project and how to avoid common pitfalls, saving valuable time and resources.
Zolv started with a full user-experience prototyping to establish a clear vision of how the user experience would work, mapping out the various journeys, touch points and general website flow. Working alongside Meraki's brand agency, we then applied the creatives onto these wireframes.
We created an intuitive tailor-made itinerary builder that allows customers to interact with the site; adding and removing accommodation, experiences and destinations to design their perfect trip. Pushing the boundaries of map technology, we worked with Meraki to design a comprehensive interactive map feature that plots flights, rail and road trips as the customer designs their trip.
Working closely with Codegen, we integrated Travelbox Elite Packages with the itinerary builder. The component-based product management in Travelbox helped create the user experience we wanted and enabled us to deliver pricing despite the complicated nature of the product design.
An integration with Marketing Radar CRM gives customers the ability to save and reload itineraries and supports a feature rich post-booking experience in MyMeraki. Booking progress notifications and basket abandonment analytics were easy to implement with Radar behind the site, as were automated emails throughout the complete customer journey from research stage to balance payment reminders.
An integration with Marketing Radar CRM gives customers the ability to save and reload itineraries and supports a feature rich post-booking experience in MyMeraki. Booking progress notifications and basket abandonment analytics were easy to implement with Radar behind the site, as were automated emails throughout the complete customer journey from research stage to balance payment reminders.
“Creating a tailor-made trip online is remarkably tricky. With so many elements to get right, most online brands have steered away from ecommerce and still direct people to pick up the phone. Zolv brought the technical know-how to ensure our frontend experience was not compromised, designing and building an ecommerce experience that ensured we delivered a front end with the user in mind.”
Matt Hodgson, General Manager
