Improving user journeys and engagement for logistics company

The initial brief to create a new web design logistics company for the St. Modwen Logistics website arrived at Think in May 2022.

The existing website had only been created four years ago. The team realised they needed to make improvements to the layout, navigation, content, and user experience.

This had been compounded by additional functionality been ‘added-to’, and in order to fit in with its fixed menu structure there was no logical flow for a visitor to find information.

The brief was to redesign and create a high quality custom website the SML website in order to improve visitor experience, engagement and position SML as a trusted, responsible, customer centric, business partner.

Ideally, the visitors and potential customers would be able to navigate the website and easily find what they are looking for. This would improved engagement and encourage them to get in touch with the team.

The ethos of the new website design was two fold.

To demonstrate that SML create communities within their parks and allow users to easily find their properties and parks to increase enquiries and conversion rates

User journey (UJ) planning was key. We worked closely with the SML marketing team to identify their main user and audience types of:

• Their customers
• Their local communities
• Landowners
• Local authorities
• Contractors and Partners
• And property agents

Identifying these allowed us to segment the website into logical sections and create user journey maps. simple and seamless through the creation of wireframes covering each journey, website page, and section.

The second element of the planning stage was to create a custom search function that was sector disruptive. Extensive research across all their competitors revealed a range of search filters. Many didn’t make sense, didn’t ask the right questions or in some cases, didn’t work at all.

The filter had a compare tool that helped users easily see the differences in units. You could also download a PDF of this that showed uptown 3 properties. Ideal for agents preparing to show a potential customer a property.

This followed a similar plan to the planning, to ensure it integrated into the website and user journeys and user experience design (UX). We even created a ‘live’ prototype to demonstrate proof of concept functionality and that it would work across different screen sizes.

One approval of the UJ/UX we moved to design.

This process lasted several months due to changes at business level. When we eventually had approval, the project moved to the website development stage.

The SML team also requested help with some commercial photography and video. With the aim of bringing their own customers journeys and the SML communities to life.

They commissioned us do 5 days of commercial photography across the business parks at Stoke, Gloucester and Heywood. Whilst there, we gained access to several businesses and photographed their people, the real heroes of logistics parks.

We also produced a marketing film for a brand new unit in Stoke that included some drone footage.

The visual design of the website itself was a huge improvement on the previous website. The team were delighted with it, stating that they enjoyed our collaborative approach and working with Think.

Due to numerous changes at the business level, the website went live in March 2024. (It was actually ready in March 2023).

St. Modwen Logistics originated from St. Modwen Properties, a leading property development and investment company established in 1966. The parent company had a long-standing reputation for improving brownfield locations in neglected areas throughout the UK. To cater to the increasing need for top-notch logistics and industrial spaces, St. Modwen Logistics (SML) was created.During the project, St. Modwen Logistics merged with Industrials to form a new super logistics business – Indurent.

The new Indurent website launched in 1st July 2024. You can view our St Modwen site here.