Native App UX and CRO Optimisation

Showing Big Bus Tours how to grow conversions and transactions through their native app. 

14.91%

increase in the app conversion rate

10.73%

increase in app share of revenue

63%

new in-app experience score

Meet Hugo

When Hugo, the newly appointed Head of Ecommerce and Digital Experience, started in his role at sight-seeing giants Big Bus Tours, he inherited a successful team that had been instrumental in delivering the first iteration of their native app.  

As a company that places customers at the centre of everything they do, Hugo and his team were tasked with building on previous successes and delivering on three key performance indicators which simultaneously helped the business and customers alike.  

  1. Increase the in-app experience score. 
  2. Increase the number of transactions completed online.  
  3. Increase the conversion rate of in-app users.  

Through pragmatic user research, rapid experimentation and prototyping coupled with early-stage usability testing, we showed the digital team at Big Bus Tours how to drive their KPI’s through the roof.  

The Challenge 

  • Meeting growing customer expectations.
  • Achieving commercial growth objectives.
  • Streamlining and optimising the online experience.

Big Bus Tours, founded in 2011, have shot to success by offering their customers an unrivalled experience when visiting an international city. Operating in 25 cities and 14 countries, they’re the largest open top bus sightseeing tour operator in the world.  

When Hugo was appointed, he inherited a native iOS and Android application that was functional and provided a solid foundation from which to grow, but fell below customer expectations in several areas. As a real differentiator for Big Bus Tours, redesigning the app user experience was now a priority. 

Essentially, the user experience of the app had to evolve to meet user expectation. The online and offline experiences weren’t reflective of each other, the design looked tired, it wasn’t optimised for ecommerce and the user experience between the app and web was inconsistent.  Collectively the digital team knew this needed to improve.  

In addition to the user needs and requirements, Hugo was also tasked with delivering on a number of commercial objectives set out by the board which, if hit, would result in additional budget and resources being allocated to his team. It was a real chance to put the app front and centre of the Big Bus Digital Experience. 

The Problem Statement 

When Hugo initially approached Pixeltree our remit was clear; 

“How might we… significantly enhance the customers digital experience whilst simultaneously increasing in-app revenue. Fast!”  

Sounds like a tough nut to crack, eh?! Here’s how we did it…  

The Solution 

Like anybody in a new role, the desire to demonstrate your capabilities and have an instant impact is of huge importance. Collectively, we understand that balancing the customer needs with business needs was going to be a challenge. Simply offering more in-app purchases, adverts and upsells wasn’t going to cut it – we needed to better understand the real reasons customers wanted to use the app.  

To achieve this, we involved users immediately. Working with the Big Bus Tours team we undertook rapid user research allowing us to make better decisions and drastically reduce the risk of failing in design.  

To generate ideas and ensure we focussed our efforts in the right direction – we needed to better understand how customers currently used the app and what they valued most. This helped us to uncover insights like;  

Travellers… 

  • Primarily used the app for helping them explore a city and all it had to offer. 
  • Wanted to know where to get off the bus if they need a wee. 
  • Wanted familiarity and expected similar mapping features to that of Google Maps. 

How we helped Hugo’s team:  

  • In-app surveys. 
  • Data analysis. 
  • Usability testing.  

We then shared the findings via video with the project team for their own review and analysis. 

Through user research came a vision: Create a digital companion for city explorers to cater for their needs when traveling to a new international city.  

Using rapid prototyping, we were then able to test a plethora of potential solutions in as little as two weeks, all validated by frequent travellers, with a view of finding the right ideas quickly.  

Together with Hugo and his team, we: 

  • Overhauled the menu structure for smoother navigation. 
  • Reimagined the ‘City Explorer’ feature to best serve user needs. 
  • Optimised conversion rates for complimentary products (upsells) and tickets. 

Prior to any of the design work making its way into the engineering workflow, we conducted a series of short, moderated usability tests to validate our assumptions whilst allowing the project team to quickly iterate and refine on the fly.  

Results 

14.91%

increase in conversion rate

10.73%

increase in app share of revenue

63%

new in-app experience score

4.66%

increase in mobile transactions

781k

new downloads post-completion

Working with Pixeltree is a real pleasure. James and team couple a deep knowledge of user experience research methodology and design with a personable and collaborative style. We have plenty more work planned to keep the Big Bus Tours Digital Experience ahead of the game and I’m looking forward to collaborating on more projects with PixelTree.
Hugo Harding Big Bus Tours

One Team – Working Together  

Meet the collaborators! Our team was on hand to support Hugo and his team at every stage.  

From amassing raw data to analysing post-test user feedback, each success and setback is shared and tackled together. One team. One vision. 

How our project experts collaborated with the team at Big Bus Tours

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