How Bing is Setting the Standard for Online User Experience
Bing Travel
By Max Silver: “I am a senior marketing communications major at Emerson College in Boston. I have spent the last few years bouncing from internship to internship in Boston, and now one in LA. My career focus is mainly on social media marketing and inbound marketing. I also love Boston sports.”
When I first saw ads for Bing, I laughed at the idea of anybody doing search better than Google. I was even more skeptical about their slogan, “The Decision Engine.” It simply doesn’t make sense.
So I ignored Bing until, like any good Millennial, I was referred to the site by a friend. He said he’d found a great deal on airfare using Bing. I didn’t even know they had a travel section! I needed to book a flight to Los Angeles for a semester at my college’s satellite campus. It was time to give Bing Travel a try.
Some features immediately stood out to me:
Note: You cannot purchase tickets directly through Bing.
1. Compares prices from other similar sites – Unlike sites like Orbitz, Expedia, and many others, Bing travel compares prices from airline sites as well as the aggregation sites. This means instead of jumping around from site to site, all you have to do is go to Bing.
2. A 7-day Trip Predictor – This handy little tool predicts whether prices will be rising, falling or staying the same over the next week. They also added the percent confidence they have that this be true, which is a smart way to cover their asses.
3. Overall ease of use – If you want to specify certain times you want to leave or depart, or the airlines you wish to compare, it is easy to do so after putting in your original flight plans. Just scroll along the sidebar. You can also scroll through which airports you want to connect through, how long you want to layover, and whether you want a red eye or not.
4. Fare tracking – This isn’t a new feature to travel sites, but Bing has added it to improve their process. Just enter your email and they will send you alerts when your desired flight has good deals.
While all four features look good on their own. Together, they improve the user experience by reducing the time needed to find and book a flight (or hotel).
I can still picture my Dad calling different airlines and reading consumer reviews before making a final decision when he planned trips. He taught me to think before I buy. While my generation likes the idea of saving money, no one likes to spend time calling a bunch of places, or even jumping from site to site all day. It’s a waste of valuable time and we love finding new ways to take shortcuts.
Bing has been able to do what almost no site has done for me: make a one-stop shopping experience.
The experience I have with your product and on your site will carry far more weight then any advertising campaign ever will with me. When it comes to dealing with tech-savvy and time-short millennials, user experience IS the new marketing for your brand. If you can eliminate the times I have to backtrack, change pages, or be on hold in order to get something done, you will create something very valuable for your company: brand loyalty from the impatient Millennial.
Photo Credit: bpedro
I like Bing too. Is it better than Google? In some ways, yes. But their success is limited to their main search portal. When I use Google, I’m rarely searching through Google.com. I use Gmail, Voice, Wave, Talk, News and Chrome. I watch videos on Youtube, read blogs with Reader and find my way around with Maps. And I do it all from my Android phone.
Google consistently provides excellent services at the right price. Sure there are privacy concerns to be considered, but truthfully, I don’t care. This is the way things work in the 21st century. So while Bing may have come up with a competitive search engine, I think they did so about ten years too late.
What are peoples experiences of startpage.com
Bing is to Google as PC is to Mac, or Blackberry is to iPhone. I associate Bing with words like ugly, corporate, stuffy, old, whereas Google is all about being progressive, beautiful clean lines, ease of use, modernity. I am Google, I am a Mac, and I would be an iPhone if I could afford it. I know that it’s all about my perceptions, but I don’t think I’ll ever change.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Bing. Maybe if I know someone personally who gave me a good recommendation, I might try it. But I’m hugely loyal to Google. I use Google for everything.
I definitely agree with Matt on this one.
I felt the same way about Bing for a long time, and completely agreed with Christine’s PC to Mac analogy. But once I tried it, I saw that while not all features were up to par with Google, I found that I found it to be just a sleek, if not more so. But I challenge you to use Bing Travel next time you need to fly, and I think you will agree that if offers a great user experience in a niche that Google has no competition for, because they do not have a travel section.
The Search Overload Syndrome theme in the Bing ads was a great way to hit viewers. Hesitantly, I gave Bing a try and was disappointed. The layout didn’t seem straightforward and I felt lost without my links to Gmail and Maps. Simply put, I’m a big brand loyalist and it just wasn’t Google.
Ugh! I wish I knew about this before booking tickets to Chile for January!
Big-time Googler, but Bing does have a better section for travel. As stated by author, one-stop comparison shopping. I got a great fare to Cali.
Bing is to Google as PC is to Mac, or Blackberry is to iPhone. I associate Bing with words like ugly, corporate, stuffy, old, whereas Google is all about being progressive, beautiful clean lines, ease of use, modernity. I am Google, I am a Mac, and I would be an iPhone if I could afford it. I know that it's all about my perceptions, but I don't think I'll ever change.