Thomas Cook boosts its e-business with WAX Interactive

Improving the customer experience with a UX and design overhaul.

The Thomas Cook group turned to WAX Interactive to redesign its e-commerce websites and optimise the user experience. The tour operator's websites are more visual and more immersive and have been completely redesigned to improve the conversion rate and enhance the brand with a fluid customer journey.

Reaffirming the Group's brands' identities

The Thomas Cook group, which is a pioneer of organised trips, wants to overhaul its websites for the general public -  Thomascook.fr and Jettours.com- as part of repositioning and differentiating its two brands better. The project must highlight the two brand identities while expressing their specific identity at the same time.The main objectives of this UX and design overhaul are ambitious:

  • To increase the average shopping basket.
  • To improve the conversion rate.
  • To promote Thomas Cook's and Jet Tours' brand image.

Thomas Cook chose WAX Interactive, the SQLI group's digital agency, for its proven UX and design expertise as well as the suitability of the suggested methodology (organisation into sprints, collaborative approach and study of uses).

"We needed to overhaul our e-commerce websites, and WAX was the natural choice for us because their multi-device digital expertise impressed us so much. We were reassured by the proposal to help our teams with co-construction and WAX very quickly grasped the particularities and technical constraints related to the travel sector," explains Hervé Witasse, Thomas Cook's e-commerce manager.

A unique user experience

The Jettours.com and ThomasCook.fr websites were completely redesigned: from the home page to browsing, not forgetting the search engine, the product information sheets and the booking funnel. The emphasis was on the customer journey and the design to address the latest e-commerce trends and remain in keeping with the two brands' corporate graphic charters.In order to understand the intentions of online and offline customers and better identify their needs, WAX has set up a real 'usage' laboratory (in-store observations, focus groups, etc.). User tests were also carried out during the project to confirm the journeys and creative choices.

Thanks to the co-design work done with the Thomas Cook e-commerce teams, WAX has designed immersive and inspirational e-commerce websites which make it possible to reposition the two brands and highlight their offers. WAX has therefore:

  • Designed the website as a showcase which highlights the brands. 
  • Presented the catalogue with a focus on the experience. 
  • Emphasised the brand's and its travel agents' expertise on the website.

To take the customer experience even further, WAX also incorporated journalistic content and provided inspiration with travel diaries which can be found on Mag Jet Tours.

+ 65% online sales

Since its launch in April 2017, ThomasCook.fr has seen a 65% increase in sales with the optimisation of the website and the customer experience. Meanwhile Jettours.com's sales have increased by 25% since it went online in December 2016.

"We wanted a comprehensive e-commerce overhaul focused on the customer experience to meet our business objectives. To do this, we collaborated with WAX Interactive for several months to rebuild our user journey. Thanks to these overhauls, we have seen a 65% increase in online sales! Feedback internally has also been very positive. We now have better knowledge about customers and more effective websites. We intend to continue with these optimisations in order to increase users' satisfaction, in particular by WAX setting up a new customer area," concludes Hervé Witasse.