Optimizing the .com Experience
Building a long-term web strategy
OVERVIEW
In leading the optimization of CSX.com and Intermodal.com, our goal was to build a long-term web strategy that would deliver impactful first impressions and offer enhanced, user-friendly experiences.
This project focused on strengthening CSX’s discoverability and online presence, making it easy for prospective customers to find and engage with the brand, understand our unique value, and ultimately choose our services.
To create a unified brand experience, we aimed to establish a cohesive CSX identity, building lasting connections with customers that extend beyond individual transactions. Key priorities included ensuring seamless navigational flow, guiding users effortlessly toward our service offerings, and highlighting the core value propositions that make our services worth choosing.
By leading with a Design Thinking approach, we embedded empathy and deep insights into customer behavior and needs, creating a website experience that is both intuitive and engaging. This comprehensive redesign positioned CSX to better connect with and serve its customers through a dynamic, user-centered online experience.
UX Approach
CSX Pricing & Information Request Form
PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMER INITIAL ENGAGEMENT
Issues Identified
Users are directed to several endpoints and email addresses to request information. The current request form asks for 25 pieces of information, in the very first interaction with CSX.
Location
CSX "Become a Customer" Page & Inquiry Form
Contact Us (Selected Commodity)
Pricing
Service Start-Up
Others TBD
Usability
Provides poor efficiency of use and little flexibility
Creates heavy load on user's memory, rather than neatly presenting few options in a single place for quick recognition
Experience*
The heavy lifting of initial engagement is put on prospective customers by requesting a long list of information up front and requiring them to select from several contact routes to get to the right team. This creates unnecessary friction in the initial stage of customer engagement and delivers a substandard first impression.
*Experience diagnosis summary offered in place of inaccessible analytics.
OPTIMIZE INITIAL ENGAGEMENT FLOW
UX Recommendation
Simplify engagement route, providing clear paths to goal completion for new and existing users, etc., seizing operational opportunities to engage with customers post-inquiry to then gather additional, pertinent information.
ShipCSX Account Registration
New User, Existing Company Relationship
A new, improved user registration experience is on its way to ShipCSX, allowing new users at companies with existing accounts to easily create their accounts.
Connect CSX.com to ShipCSX Ecosystem
Customer Journey Map
Captures steps of user flow, user sentiments, and sytem and user status across the customer journey. This highlights any problematic flow steps and allows for empathy in the construction of our processes to best accommodate an excellent customer experience.
Address User Journey Impediments
MISDIRECTION
Issues Identified
In various places both on mobile and desktop versions of CSX.com, users are directed to unintended page endpoints or completely dead/empty pages.
Location
Mobile "New to CSX or Rail?" links
Calculator pages
Usability
Provides poor efficiency of use and little flexibility
UX Recommendation
Identify and isolate all existing misdirects or broken links to correct.
Optimize FAQs Information Architecture
VARIOUS FAQS & OTHER PRESENTED DATA ACROSS CSX.COM
Issues Identified
FAQs pages are disconnected and inconsistent in format - some are pages, others are PDFs, as well as other downloadable resources in Excel, etc.
Location
Resources> FAQs
Suppliers> FAQs
Performance Measures> FAQs
Usability
Inconsistency
Provides poor efficiency of use and little flexibility
Violates help & documentation best practices
UX Recommendation
Inspect FAQ pages and other resource links to identify any patterns or intentionality in various formats
Merge resource data into centralized space that is easily navigated and searchable
More clearly present persona-based workflows
ShipCSX Help Center Concept
Reusable concept for CSX.com
The ShipCSX rewrite also presents an opportunity to collect similarly scattered and inconsistent FAQs and customer support resources into a centralized space. This space is searchable at the global level and presented with clearly defined persona and goal-driven workflow paths, as well as intentional resource hierarchy to drive customers toward desired help paths in priority order.
UX DESIGN BENEFITS & OUTCOMES
Customer Empathy
Design Thinking led approach that focused on empathy, creating deep insights to customer behavior and needs, leading to a website redesign that is intuitive and engaging.
Centralization
Created a one CSX connection with the customers that may last even longer than the product itself.
Increased Discoverability
Enabled prospective customers to discover theCSX brand before they are aware we exist, and help them learn about our competitive advantage to then choose our services.
Enhancing Value
Lead prospective customers naturally to our service value proposition and why it's worth purchasing.