SeaLink
Time for a website and e-commerce experience refresh
Background
SeaLink, a the leading passenger and vehicle ferry business connecting customers to New Zealand’s stunning Hauraki Gulf, recognised the urgent need to enhance its online booking experience. With customer expectations rapidly shifting towards seamless digital self-service and an increasing number of users accessing the website via mobile devices, SeaLink needed a solution to position itself as a digitally-enabled, customer-centric business. Leveraging D&Co’s proprietary Experience.eQ™ system, integrating strategic intelligence (IQ), emotional connection (EQ), and AI-powered acceleration (AI) - we set out to deliver an exceptional and intuitive booking experience.
The challenge
SeaLink faced several significant challenges with its existing digital infrastructure. Despite notable increases in web traffic, conversion rates had declined, signalling a misalignment between user expectations and site functionality. Additionally, the proprietary digital commerce platform was not able to quickly adapt to the evolving needs of the business, resulting in missed opportunities to enhance the customer experience.
“TBC.”
— Grady Cameron, CEO, SeaLink
“We’ve been on an incredible journey with SeaLink, from brand strategy and story through to campaigns, activations, and a refreshed identity across fleet, terminals, and their head office. It’s been a blast.
The new website was a natural next step: a long-overdue refresh of the user experience, reimagined as a seamless, customer-first e-commerce platform that unlocks access to the islands and brings the SeaLink brand to life digitally.”
— Russ Douglas, Founder & Principal Strategist, D&Co
Delivering a state-of-the-art e-commerce experience through highly collaborative partnerships and teamwork.
Our solution
D&Co embarked on an extensive year-long transformation programme, strategically designed to deliver a state-of-the-art e-commerce platform. The initiative commenced with a rigorous review and strategy process, including comprehensive statistical analysis, stakeholder interviews, digital partner reviews, competitor benchmarking, an extensive user-experience review and the final strategy. These insights clearly highlighted the booking engine as the key touchpoint impacting customer satisfaction and revenue generation. We presented our strategy to the Board for approval and commenced work on the architecture.
In the Architect phase, we employed the strategic intelligence of Experience.eQ™ to craft a robust site architecture and detailed wireframes, ensuring clarity and seamless navigation across desktop and mobile platforms. Using Figma, we developed interactive prototypes, rigorously validated through EQ driven user testing, ensuring the new design resonated emotionally and functionally with users, significantly enhancing the booking flow.
Our design direction focused heavily on simplicity, speed, and intuitive navigation, applying a ‘Mobile First’ strategy aligned with customer expectations. Kentico CMS was selected for scalability, security, and future-proofing. Technical collaboration was streamlined effectively, with KudosWeb managing the front-end design, CMS and API integrations, while CustomLinc handled backend bookings. Leveraging Experience.eQ™’s IQ and EQ capabilities to develop robust brand voice guidelines we then taught our AI models to fast-track content delivery, ensuring consistency and efficiency throughout the process.
D&Co’s Programme Management team expertly coordinated multiple technical partners and the SeaLink internal team, facilitating smooth integration, comprehensive user acceptance testing (UAT), and ultimately ensuring successful deployment. The resulting frictionless customer journey is already significantly reducing pressure on the call centre, has optimised operational efficiency, and elevated overall customer satisfaction and profitability.
DELIVERABLES
Digital strategy powered by Experience.eQ™
Comprehensive site architecture
UX wireframes and prototyping
Figma-based responsive website design
AI-accelerated content creation
Brand voice guidelines
Rigorous programme management
User acceptance testing
Digital partner co-ordination
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