E-commerce booking site
Refresh Accommodation
Refresh Accommodation rents serviced apartments to both the corporate and private markets. Refresh approached Hugo & Cat as an entrepreneurial venture and asked us to create a strategy that would build their business online.
Analysing the business model, we carried out a competitor review and identified potential markets and audience types. With potential customers in both the corporate and private sector, (from major banks needing to accommodate large numbers of international staff to individuals travelling for leisure) the new site needed to offer highly tailored experiences.
Competing for market share with London’s finest hotels, it was crucial the site enhanced the brand quality and clearly communicated the high level of customer service and apartments.
With the online accommodation search market highly saturated, the solution had to go beyond a simple search and select site, so we began to think of ways to personalise the content to each user and add value to the service.
Our approach
Wanting to create a site that would stand out in the cluttered market, we built in personalised content, individual user accounts, previous search look-up and 'my favourites' to name a few. In addition, the site features apartment tours, photo galleries, ‘find the nearest amenity to this apartment’ and interactive mapping. Add in online availability requests and e-commerce and the functionality goes on and on and the result is a site that adapts itself to the specified interests of the user.
The site is built using the latest web coding techniques including Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and xHTML to make sure the site loads quickly, is search engine friendly and looks great in all major browsers.
As part of the drive to increase brand exposure we also created and integrated email-marketing capabilities to offer promotions and features to the large existing client database.
Behind the scenes we implemented our Content Management System, and developed integrated apartment booking workflow – saving Refresh time and resources.