From Clicks to Check-Ins: The Science Behind Robinson Club’s Travel Experience

Michael Richter, Manager of Conversion Optimization and User Research at Robinson Club, shares how the company drives growth through experimentation and data-driven decisions. This story highlights how Robinson Club uses Optimizely to enhance user experiences, boost collaboration, and turn insights into results.

The Path to Experimentation

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Michael Richter is Manager of Conversion Optimization and User Research and has worked for TUI Group for almost 30 years.
Michael’s experience as a developer showed him the need to validate ideas with data, leading to his focus on A/B testing and experimentation.

Driving collaboration and innovation at Robinson Club

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Robinson Club uses the RICE framework to prioritize experiment ideas efficiently.
The adoption of Optimizely Experiment Collaboration tool has improved idea management, streamlined processes, and facilitated tracking across teams.
All idea contributors are credited, fostering a culture of transparency and engagement.

Measuring experimentation success

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Robinson Club focuses on metrics close to user actions, like click-through rates, while prioritizing macro conversions such as checkout entries.
Guardrail metrics ensure experiments don’t negatively impact key business outcomes.
The customer experience is critical in travel, as vacations involve emotional and time investments beyond just money.

We are able to calculate backwards the additional revenue we generated by running A test. And this is my first real metric, which I use to showcase the value of the experimentation programme.
Michael Richter - Robinson Club

Simplifying steps for higher conversions

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Robinson Club tested a longer 9-step checkout, leading to a significant conversion uplift.
Reducing cognitive load with shorter steps improved user flow and increased completion rates.
Similar results were seen across other industries, confirming the effectiveness of the approach.

If your cognitive load is low, you are easy to go from one step to the next one. And to be honest, if you have completed six steps, you will do three more. It doesn't make any difference anymore.
Michael Richter - Robinson Club

Robinson Club's Million-Euro Idea: Learning from Customer Feedback

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Customer interviews were used to identify gaps in accommodation offerings.
Displaying unavailable family rooms on the website led to a €2.5 million increase in revenue.
Even seemingly illogical ideas, like showing unavailable rooms, can lead to major business gains when backed by customer insights.

You will never develop such ideas in your office alone.
Michael Richter - Robinson Club

Harnessing AI for Smarter Marketing and Data Insights

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Robinson Club used AI to generate and test headlines in different languages, streamlining the content creation process.
Their team is excited about using AI to detect anomalies in customer data, saving time on in-depth analysis.

Why Robinson Club Continues to Trust Optimizely After 10 Years

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Robinson Club values Optimizely's user-friendly interface and responsive customer support, regardless of the team’s technical skill level.
During a January hackathon, Optimizely provided crucial support, enabling the team to run 41 experiments in just two days.

"Everything I wanted to do, I was able to do... everything worked."
Michael Richter - Robinson Club

Turning Failures into Learnings in Conversion Rate Optimization

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Three tips from Michael:

Always conduct user interviews and surveys to get real insights and avoid relying on gut feelings.
Focus on identifying user problems through research rather than assuming you know what users want.
Even if a test doesn't succeed, it's still a valuable learning experience.

Conclusion

Robinson Club drives digital growth through experimentation, user research, and cross-team collaboration. Using Optimizely’s tools—like Experiment Collaboration and AI-driven recommendations—they streamline ideation, prioritize tests with the RICE framework, and uncover data-driven insights. This approach has delivered wins like a 13% conversion boost from reducing cognitive load in checkout and €2.5 million in additional revenue by displaying unavailable room options. After a decade with Optimizely, Robinson Club continues to foster a culture of innovation where every test is a learning opportunity.

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