Clip ‘n Climb approached MP Digital around 12 months ago for support regarding its existing online booking system, which was quite old and unable to handle the pressures of a growing multi-centre business which takes tens of thousands of enquiries and reservations each month.
We were asked to build a bespoke new booking system capable of being supported for the next five years, which would provide Clip ‘n Climb centres with a fully unified solution that would allow them to manage session capacities and take bookings online in the same way.
The system needed to have multi-tenancy capabilities so it would be able to support both centres using a single code base.
This would allow for multiple centres to be supported against issues, while benefiting new features and maintenance across all sites. Any patches can be rolled out across the system, rather than having to make individual changes to each centre’s system.
Stability was a key consideration due to the system being a high availability Software as a Service (SaaS), as if the system goes down, it means centres are unable to manage their bookings and run their operations effectively.
With a high volume of visitors coming from mobile and tablet devices, it was also crucial that the system was optimised for use by mobile devices.
The Solution
We created a bespoke Laravel-built booking system, which makes use of the latest versions of PHP and MYSQL.
It takes payments through WorldPay and Stripe using their secure payment gateways, via an API to ensure customer data is protected, making sure that the payment process was compliant and on-brand was a key consideration for this project.
The system has multiple layers of error detection, both from the customers’ side and the administrators’ side.
Bugs are notified within 30 seconds of an issue being detected, with a fix being released between 15 minutes and an hour later, depending on its severity.
A deployment pipeline is used, which allows changes to be pushed out across the system with no downtime and no risk of customers being pushed off, enhancing the overall slickness of day to day operations.
Our system needed to not only help each centre to manage the business more efficiently, but also enhance the way Clip ‘n Climb markets its appearance and global offering.
A streamlined user experience, improved the entire booking process from start to finish, ensuring customers converted without getting confused or lost while making their booking. This benefited both the customer and centre, as a streamlined sales process enhances everyones experience.
The Process
MP Digital worked in collaboration with the team at Clip ‘n Climb to gain an in-depth understanding of the existing booking system, its weaknesses and the pain points these created for both its customers and its staff.
We also looked at some of the best booking systems already on the market and carried out user experience (UX) testing on these and the current system to understand what worked well and what could be improved.
Following this research period, we created a list of essential features, for customers and administrators, that the new system would contain.
These included features such as the ability to book, modify and manage sessions via admins, and upload and manage special offers for customers.
Once the features were agreed by Clip ‘n Climb, wireframes were produced to illustrate the customer journey, indicate where functionality would sit and how the customer would interact with it.
An initial design for the customer booking process was also produced, along with automated confirmation messages and emails.During this process, the back office system was also designed and developed, and linked to the customer-facing booking process.
Once the system had been developed, PEN and vulnerability testing was completed to ensure it was fit for purpose.
The booking system had a phasing-in period, to one centre first then others over a month-long period following the successful initial launch.
The Impact
The aim of our solution was to provide more flexibility to centres while also improving the customer journey, with the ultimate aim of generating more bookings.
The system was introduced to multiple centres with great success, with uptime at 100% for the past nine months and the number of issues reported to the Clip ’n Climb falling by more than 90%.
The system has been a great success, giving Clip ‘n Climb more control and less risk. Since launch, the bookings conversion rate across all centres has increased by 25%.
More than 900 new items, either fixes or features, have been pushed out across the system, which consistently achieves a load speed of 800ms, well below Google’s recommended speed of 1.5 seconds.
Don’t just take our word…
“MP Digital has been an absolute pleasure to work with on our new Clip ‘n Climb booking system.
Vicky CoupeClip ‘n Climb Franchise Manager
They quickly turned around a brand new, bespoke booking system that many Clip ‘n Climb centres are now using and we have already seen an impressive response from users.
We now have the assurance that our system is reliable and has a low percentage of downtime which is important to us and our centre owners.
Having worked with the team at MP Digital closely for the past six months, the one thing that most impressed us was their research and how they really got to know the product and the end user, which, in turn, enabled them to deliver a great end product for us.
We were that happy and impressed by their approach and their work ethic that we have now instructed them to complete a full redesign of our international website and also our customer-facing website.”