Mobile Ethnography White Paper
Learn how Mobile Ethnography can supplement your research projects and generate richer contextual insights for your brands.
How mobile ethnography helped a travel and tourism company understand their customer’s full journey.
Our client was a leader in understanding digital insights in a world which increasingly integrates the digital with the real life. It was for this reason that they were tasked by a tourism and travel company with gaining a deeper insight into the customer journey of travellers over the course of the holiday. The company realised that customer journey began with searches, information-seeking and booking online. But the holiday experience then transferred to real-life, immersive experiences that are increasingly sought after by tourists and travellers.
The Challenge
Whilst the company could gain some insight from customers by getting reflective feedback on customers experiences, it didn’t paint an accurate picture. From deciding on a destination, selecting a package, taking the trip and arriving home, customers journeys could span weeks and months. This meant that responses data suffered from post-rationalisation and bias.
Another challenge to understanding these journeys was the very nature of the customers they were trying to understand. Their customers were travelling to multiple locations and departing from different regions around the world. Whilst e-commerce platforms open up new markets, it can also present challenges in understanding the varied needs and culture of consumers within them.
But the overarching challenge for our client was understanding the full correlation between the digital and real-life customer journey. They needed to know how booking their hotel, using google maps to find their hotel and how they searched for activities online during their trip combined with the real-life travel experience of their customers.
The Goals
Gain an insight into the user experience of consumers using their online resources in conjunction with their online booking service as part of holiday planning
Gain a real-life insight into the experiences of customers on holidays trips to multiple destinations
Understand how their customers engaged with their online platform and how it impacted on the lived holiday experience
35 Respondents
9 Tasks
2 Weeks
Tasking Strategy: Scheduled Tasking
The Solution
When our client approached us with their challenge, we were excited by the prospect of using mobile ethnography to help them achieve their goals. Indeemos unique ability to capture real-life, in-the-moment insights from consumer meant that it was perfect for a action-packed holiday diaries. But it also played to another strength of our platform. It allowed respondents to record their pre-holiday user experience of online resources and of the travel companies booking platform in the context of their own homes, in their own time.
Working with Indeemo, our client decided upon using our scheduled tasking methodology for the project. This allowed them to schedule respondents pre-holiday tasks first and then schedule the holiday tasks prior to their departure. During the course of their holidays, respondents uploaded photos with captions, videos, and text notes, diarying everything from their arrival at the hotel, how they searched for experiences online and reflections on the first, middle and last day of their holiday.
An additional on-going task also allowed provide to upload media-rich uploads from every notable moment of their holiday. Such was the success of the chosen methodology, our client received over 1,000 authentic holiday moments from respondents.
By utilising Indeemos platform to its full extent, our client successfully captured the full customer journey of their respondents. What was particularly remarkable however, was how easy it made it to gather data from such a widespread geographical reach. Our client recruited 35 respondents from 3 different global regions and embarked on journeys with them across the globe over the course of a month. By embedding themselves in the lives of respondents using the Indeemo mobile app, our client travelled the world and gained an insight into how experiences varied amongst respondents from different regions and also how their experiences varied from destination to destination.
If you’d like to learn more about how mobile ethnography could help a travel and tourism company understand the full customer journey of users, from the digital to the lived experience, please get in touch using the contact form below.
Contact us
Autoethnography is a powerful way to get the real-life perspective of your customer’s experience as they interact with, purchase or consume your product, service or experience.
We have a lot of experience at simplifying and optimising customer journey research for mobile.
We can activate your next project in one working day..
