62% increase in site performance for LeShuttle with Kentico
Challenge
LeShuttle’s booking content was previously managed on a legacy system that was difficult to update and relied heavily on team knowledge. The team sought a new website that would enhance both passenger experience and business operations by:
- Improving customer experience and adding value throughout the journey.
- Providing an easy-to-use CMS that allows the team to create engaging pages with flexible, reusable widgets and templates.
- Streamlining business processes within the CMS for easier content management across multiple systems.
Additionally, the project required a strategic URL change and full migration from Eurotunnel to LeShuttle for branding purposes, which was carefully handled to reduce the significant risk to organic visibility.
LeShuttle partnered with digital agency Crafted to build a new site that would not only improve passenger experience and business performance but also achieve key goals: better UX, faster site speed, improved performance, and enhanced sustainability.
Solution
The project ran from June 2023 to May 2024 and in that time, Crafted built a flexible, user-friendly solution that allows the LeShuttle team to create engaging pages with reusable modular widgets and the ability to create their own templates to optimize efficiency. The solution integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, the booking engine, and the mobile app, while prioritizing speed and performance.
- Modular design with Kentico widgets: Kentico widgets made the site modular, allowing the LeShuttle team to build custom pages with minimal development input. They can also save templates to ensure consistency in page structure and widget placement.
- Custom admin areas: Crafted built custom Kentico modules to manage integrations and settings, providing an easy way for administrators to handle multiple platforms.
- CMS alerts for consistency: A custom module was developed to sync service alerts across platforms, offering a central location for the team to update service information in case of issues.
- Automated updates via webhooks: Crafted created custom webhooks that automatically update the website based on sales dates provided by LeShuttle.
- Text replacement token module: A custom module allows administrators to update tokens, like ticket prices, in one place, which automatically updates content site-wide.
- Integrated booking and mobile app: The booking system and mobile app are integrated into the CMS, making updates easier and reducing the need for developer input.
- API for internal tool integration: A new API was created for LeShuttle’s "Latest Travel Info" (LTI) tool to share information seamlessly across systems.
- Streamlined booking content: Crafted consolidated booking content into a single file for the booking team, improving efficiency and reducing delivery times for updates.
“Kentico’s platform is highly customizable, providing the opportunity to scale the website as needed—while still being user-friendly—as well as the ability to easily add language variations and create custom modules.”
Results
The new LeShuttle website was launched in May 2024 and has met its goal of adding value throughout the customer journey.
Sustainability was a priority for LeShuttle, and the new site now ranks 'A' for sustainability, performing cleaner than 82% of all webpages globally. Each page visit produces only 0.18g of carbon—an 82.5% reduction from 1.03g, compared to the global average of 0.8g per page view.
By July 2024, the site's performance score improved significantly from 58 to 94 (a 62% increase), upgrading its rating from D to A. The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) was reduced from 2.9s to 1.3s, making it 0.7s faster than LeShuttle's top competitor.
The Shuttle marketing team now enjoys a dynamic new solution with which to drive engagement across its various customer profiles. The Kentico platform handles millions of sessions each month while powering personalized content, email communications, and integrating with the company’s CRM.
“It's LeShuttle's most powerful web deployment to date, achieving both technical and marketing ambition.”
Statistics
- 37% increase in average CTR
- 7% increase in clicks
- 6.5 avg position In search (up from 10.1)
Testimonial
"Crafted delivered the highest quality new Kentico CMS platform and managed multiple integration partners, continually delivering additional technical support and guidance.”