Trainline
Passenger details
Business context
💃 Trainline expanding to Spain
In January 2022, we entered the Spanish market with a focus on adapting our product to meet the expectations and preferences of Spanish customers.
🦾 Building a dedicated team
To ensure our success in this new market, we established a specialized Spanish market team in April 2023. This team was tasked with implementing targeted optimisations that resonate with local users and align with their specific needs.
Let me introduce you to our team’s OKRs
💰
Maximise the efficiency from our platform, to be able to boost successful bookings and revenue.
🔗
Improve user’s engagement with Trainline’s platform.
⚠️
Ensure seamless user experiences by minimising errors.
Bridging business needs and customer pain points
Our journey began with a deep dive into understanding the unique needs and behaviors of Spanish customers. By analyzing recent research data, we consolidated key insights on user behaviors and preferences, forming a foundation for our design approach.
Insights into Spanish Customer Preferences:
Purpose: 66% of Spanish users travel for leisure, seeking a relaxed and comfortable experience.
Priorities: Cost is a primary concern, with most customers favoring budget-friendly options over specific travel times or dates.
Value of Train Travel: Spanish customers appreciate the convenience of train travel, which offers relaxation, speed, and direct arrival in city centers.
We conducted workshops to immerse ourselves in these insights. These workshops fostered empathy, helping us pinpoint key areas.
From ideas, to themes, to project prioritisation
Data illuminated the path forward in tackling the passenger details step
64%
of users abandoned their booking at the passenger details stage.
36%
of users experienced errors they later reported, underscoring a need for better input validation and error handling.
8%
of users who reached this screen attempted to use social login, suggesting an interest in streamlined authentication options.
Uncovering the business and customer issues
👉 Customer Problem
Users were dropping off at the passenger details stage, just before checkout, due to a cumbersome and error-prone form.
💸 Business Problem
These drop-offs impacted conversion rates, highlighting the need for an optimised experience to improve successful bookings.
Identifying the key pain points
😩 Lengthy form
Users found it too lengthy and repetitive.
⚠️ Field progression issues
Users frequently encountered errors that halted progress through the form.
❗Visual clutter
The form’s layout added visual clutter, making it harder for users to complete.
The goal was clear: improving the screen below 🥲👇
🎯 Customer Goal
Navigate the booking flow seamlessly.
📈 Business Goal
Optimise the booking experience to ensure users successfully purchase train tickets.
With a clear focus, we created a three phase plan
☑️
Phase 1
Improve fields validation
🔒
Phase 2
Allow users to save ID
💡
Phase 3
Improve fields validation
The project by phases
Improve fields validation
👆 Description
We began by tackling field validation issues to reduce the high error rates users were experiencing.
🚀 Impact
With the implemented changes, we saw significant improvement in the booking process, reducing error rates from over 50,000 in July to under 5,000 by September.
Saving ID documents
👆Description
In Spain, entering an ID number is a mandatory step for every ticket purchase. Allowing users to save this ID streamlines the process and reduces friction.
🚀 Impact
Since launching this feature, account creation has increased by 12%, and users now spend 5 seconds less on the booking flow.
Unsaved information
Saved information
UI uplift
👆Description
Our goal was to create a seamless experience, enabling users to enter all required information effortlessly.
🚀Impact
We reduced drop-offs during the passenger details entry stage from 64% to 49% for logged-out users and down to 23% for logged-in users.
A11y: Accessibility Matters
Accessibility was a top priority for us. We focused on ensuring the page was fully compatible with screen readers and carefully adjusted form fields to adapt seamlessly when users increased the font size. By paying attention to these details, we aimed to create an inclusive experience for all users, regardless of their accessibility needs.
Measuring success
Below there is the overall results from the different phases.
Net ticket sales uplift
+0.36% €4.3M annualised NTS uplift
Conversion rate impact
+1.35%
Step conversion from pax details to checkout
+ 2.05%
🔑 Key learnings
User-Centered Design: By focusing on real user pain points, especially through field validation improvements and error reduction, we saw a direct impact on user experience.
Data driven decisions lead to tangible outcomes: Leveraging data to identify high-dropoff points and error trends helped prioritise impactful changes.
Iterative testing is essential: Testing the form with real users and incorporating iterative feedback allowed us to make focused improvement.
Market specific adjustments: Understanding the unique requirements of the Spanish market, driving a better customer experience and positively impact CR.
Small changes, big impact: Simple changes can yield significant improvements in user satisfaction and reduce friction.