european consumer centre
Redesigning a web portal for Slovakian customers
Client
Ministry of economy of the Slovak Republic
Responsibilities
PM
Year
2016
The Story
The European Consumer Center helps consumers to defend their rights. If you need to claim your goods purchased in another EU Member State, if your flight is delayed or when you bought an item from a fraud online retailer – then you should contact European Consumer Center.
Overview
A very helpful bureau for EU residents, but no one really knows about its existence.
Challenge
To make sure to be visible for consumers when searching for legal aid and to redesign an outdated portal with extremely painful navigation.
In addition, the site has not been mobile optimized at all. However, mobile users make up about a third of total visits at that time. This number will inevitably grow, so we created the portal with a mobile-first approach.
The process
Starting with a few workshops with bureau employees, we have collected valuable insights. The original portal lacked almost everything.
One of the main problems which I had to solve was to ensure that all the site content will be visible for search engines, easy to navigate and helpful when reading.
To get the job done, I have started with the analysis of the current website. I combined the data from Google Analytics and the data provided from bureau employees. After that, me and the designer identified key problems and started sketching some solutions. Because, when you lose your luggage at the airport, all you have is your cell phone and stress. Therefore, our goal was to simplify navigation.
The main element of the homepage is the topics section.
In the past, frustrated consumers used to call the bureau because they couldn’t find the answers to their questions. This resulted in a huge amount of phone calls which cannot be handled by three employees.
To overcome this confusion, relevant FAQs are assigned to each article so the visitor gets all the possible information on one page. We didn’t want to have FAQ just as a static part of the web, but a living knowledge base. Therefore, we created a “This was not helpful” button for each answer, and when the user clicks on that, we will show him/her a contact form where he/she can submit additional questions. Employees then evaluate the usefulness of the answers and continuously refine them. The workflow has become more transparent and consumers find help faster.
When dealing with a fraud online vendor, you can get to a situation when you just can’t do anything, because you paid for your order in advance and no one is responding to your calls or emails. When nothing else works, you can file a complaint and ECCNET lawyers will help you with your case.
Filing a complaint in the old website version was a superhuman task.
In addition to the stress of your lost luggage, you also get the stress of poor user experience. The new process is much more logical and easier.
Results
- Satisfied consumers who get help when in trouble. More efficient bureau and fewer phone calls.
- 70% traffic from organic search
- Above 2 minutes avg. session duration
- Above 2 pages/session
Credits
Photography : Ondrej Kollath, Woman with shopping bags, Woman with cellphone, People on the airport
Design and dev : Ondrej Kollath