Challenge:
Las Vegas is the world’s #1 meetings destination. But in 2023, event and meeting bookings were declining. The goal? Prioritize getting users to contact the team, since direct contact triples the likelihood of booking compared to standard RFP submissions.

Role
UX Design Lead: UX strategy, UI direction, stakeholder presentations, and project management

Solving the problem started with dissecting the Event Planner user journey

I identified and broke down the key points (stages 3 & 4 below) in the user journey where they are most likely to seek information or engage with a team member. I made sure to focus on the information the users needed at these stages and plant strategic placements of getting in touch with the Vegas team as well as resources they will need from Vegas team members.

Stage 3: Exploring. “I can explore the possibilities.”

Stage 4: Narrowing. “I can confidently narrow to find the right fit.”

Where do the do the lead gen CTAs sit in the site structure and UI?

The website needed to provide comprehensive information across all pages to support every stage of the meeting planner’s journey. This included details on venue spaces, incentives, hotel bookings, and off-site activities for attendees. But stages 3 and 4 were critical, as they marked the points where the website and team member interactions occurred.

To accomplish boosting the the booking lead, the website required:

• Strategic call-to-action placements in key locations to encourage team contact.

• Seamless contact: Reaching out to a team member had to be effortless, with no barriers.

• Easy filtering: Users needed to quickly find the correct team member for their specific event type.

• Personalized engagement: Team members needed to be presented as approachable and personable, encouraging meeting planners to connect with them.

I determined that in every instance that allowed, the call to action had to…

• use color strategy - designate a single color (blue) that would be used for all top KPIs

• contain inviting messaging. ie something more inviting than “Contact Us”

• display a photo of a team member so that the user could put a friendly face to the team they are contacting

Bridged the gap between venue pages and contacting the venue’s designated team member.

• Placed personalized team members contacts onto their respective venue pages (vs only having the team members on an About The Team page in a separate location.)

• Created droppable, modular contacts widget that can be placed on any page

• Enforced ease of discoverability and usability for user

Personalized bio slider

• A slider that represents the team members in an approachable and personalized way with fun imagery and quotes that detail what they love about Vegas

• Encourages users to connect with Vegas team members

The Vegas team is robust - how can a user easily find the team member they need?

An easy way for a planner to find which team member they needed to contact by filtering by industry and sales region. The Visit Las Vegas sales team is very robust with multiple departments based on industry and location. A meeting planner has the option of over two dozen Las Vegas team members to decipher and choose from. In collaboration with our lead developers, we created a comprehensive contacts list that is filterable by industry, type of event, and geographical location. It also offers pop up for bio and contact info.

What didn’t work

User testing showed that the planned sticky button that sat directly under the menu needed to be removed. This was intended as another prominent opportunity for a user to contact the team by clicking the button and heading to the comprehensive team page. However, 100% of users tested thought this was a chat bot due to the speech bubble icon and it’s sticky placement on the right side of the screen. We ended up removing the button altogether.