--- title: Making It Easier to Buy | Experience & Commercial Strategy description: An Experience & Commercial Strategy case study exploring how customer journeys, CRM, automation, content and sales systems evolved to make complex experiences easier to buy. --- ![Making It Easier to Buy Experience & Commercial Strategy Studio](https://gemmaheath.com/hubfs/Making%20It%20Easier%20to%20Buy%20%20Experience%20%26%20Commercial%20Strategy%20Studio.png "Making It Easier to Buy Experience & Commercial Strategy Studio") # Making It Easier to Buy | Project Type: | Embedded Experience & Commercial Strategy | | --- | --- | | Organisation: | Thames Cruises London | | Role: | Digital Journey · CRM · Content · Sales Systems · Reporting · Continuous Improvement | | Status: | Ongoing |   ## How do you make a complicated product or service easier to understand, easier to sell and easier to buy? When I first started working with Thames Cruises London, the digital journey was extremely simple. There was one WordPress website where customers submitted a basic enquiry form, then we called them back. Bookings were often taken over the telephone with a pad and paper. As technology evolved, so did the way people expected to research, enquire, book, receive information and communicate with us. Much of my role became about asking: Where is the friction? What could be automated? What still needs a human? And how do we make the whole journey easier for the customer, the sales team and the suppliers behind it? ## Learning whatever the business needed next I had no formal in-house digital team around me and no structured training programme. So when something needed improving, I learned it. I taught myself enough WordPress and basic HTML to understand how the website worked and manage ongoing changes. When we needed an online booking platform, I worked directly with the software provider, learned the system, designed how we needed it to work and implemented the products, calendars, checkout journey and communications. Because Thames Cruises London operates as an agent rather than owning its own vessels and products, the system could not simply be used “out of the box”. Supplier availability changed. Stop-sales had to be managed. Different operators had different rules and products. Some elements could be automated. Others still needed manual intervention. The challenge became: **How do you take a system designed for a supplier and make it work for an intermediary?** That often meant understanding the ideal customer journey first, then finding practical ways to build as much of it as possible within the technology and budget available. ## From manual processes to connected journeys Over time, I have helped implement and improve systems across both the shared-cruise and private-hire sides of the business. The journey gradually moved from enquiry form → phone call → manual booking, to a much more connected ecosystem involving: website → booking system → CRM → proposal → follow-up → confirmation → supplier communication → event delivery → feedback → review → reporting. Each stage needed its own processes, content and logic. That included: - website and product updates - booking journeys - automated confirmation emails - CRM setup and pipelines - customer data structures - proposal templates - pricing and cost calculations - follow-up sequences - event summaries and function sheets - supplier confirmations - invoicing processes - post-event feedback - review requests - sales reporting The aim was never automation for automation’s sake. It was always: **What can we remove, simplify or improve so the journey works better?** ## Building systems around the way people actually work Private boat hire introduced a completely different challenge. Every vessel has different hire costs, capacity limits, pier charges, minimum spends, catering, drinks, entertainment, timings, operating rules. Initially, much of that commercial knowledge lived in spreadsheets. I helped build and maintain costing structures that allowed the sales team to calculate supplier costs, margins and selling prices consistently. Proposals then evolved from basic documents into more structured sales presentations. I researched how event venues, suppliers and other businesses presented proposals and used those references to improve our own sales material. We moved through PowerPoint templates and eventually into a dedicated proposal platform. Again, I learned the system independently, built the templates, structured the boat information and connected the proposal process into the CRM so that more customer and event information could be pre-populated rather than repeatedly entered manually. What had once been a largely manual sales process gradually became a much more connected journey. ## Start with the ideal journey. Work backwards. One approach has remained consistent. Rather than starting with: **“What can this software do?”** I prefer to start with: **“If we could design this perfectly, how would we want it to work?”** That means sitting with the sales team and asking: What information do you need? What slows you down? What do customers keep asking? What do you repeatedly have to explain? What would make this process easier? Then I work backwards from that ideal version and figure out how much can realistically be achieved within the systems and budgets available. Sometimes the software supports it. Sometimes it needs a workaround. And sometimes the answer is not technology at all, but clearer content, better communication or a different process. ## If the same question appears three times, something needs fixing A big part of the work is listening for repeated friction. If the sales team reports the same complaint, confusion or question several times, I treat that as a signal. Rather than simply answering the same question again, I look at: Why are people asking it? Where is the journey unclear? What information is missing? What process is creating the problem? Can we prevent it happening again? That might mean: - changing website copy - adding clearer information - adjusting an automated email - changing a sales process - updating a proposal - improving a product description - adding an FAQ - changing how information flows between teams The aim is always to fix the cause rather than repeatedly deal with the symptom. ## From CRM to customer experience Over the years we have worked with different CRM systems, eventually moving to HubSpot. Each migration meant learning a new system, understanding what it could do and rebuilding the processes around it. Because the business does not always use the highest software tiers, part of the challenge is understanding what is genuinely possible within the available tools and finding practical ways to achieve the desired result. That has included designing: - pipelines - customer properties - event information - follow-up processes - sales sequences - proposal integrations - reporting structures - feedback journeys The CRM is not just a database. Used properly, it becomes part of the experience. ## Making our partners look brilliant As the business has developed, an increasing amount of work has come through venue finders, agents and intermediaries. That created another experience problem: **How do we make it easier for them to sell us?** Because we understand what it is like to operate as an agent ourselves, I have started designing more of the journey around making our partners look good in front of their own clients. That includes developing more white-labelled proposal approaches, adapting branding, building commission into the commercial structure and reducing the amount of work the agent has to do themselves. The goal is almost invisible service: **They look brilliant to their client. We quietly make the experience happen behind the scenes.** That is where sales process becomes service design. ## Reporting closes the loop The work does not stop when a booking is made. Each month, I pull together sales data across the booking and CRM systems, review performance across shared cruises and private hire, investigate changes and prepare board-level reporting. That means looking beyond the headline number. If sales are down: **Why?** Has demand changed? Has a product changed? Is availability affecting sales? Are customers asking for something different? Has a supplier changed its offer? Is there a technical or API issue affecting the booking journey? Are we seeing the same objection repeatedly? I also troubleshoot technical issues across the systems and integrations where necessary, including booking-platform and API problems. Monthly reporting feeds into board reports, with a fuller annual review produced at the end of each accounting year. The important part is not simply collecting figures. It is using them to decide: **What needs changing next?** ## A system of continuous improvement Across the years, the journey has never really been “finished”. It keeps evolving because: technology changes, customer expectations change, suppliers change, channels change, products change, and behaviour changes. So the process becomes: **Observe → Question → Improve → Implement → Measure → Learn → Repeat** That is the part of the work I enjoy most. **Seeing where the experience could work better and finding a practical way to improve it.** ## What this work demonstrates **Customer Journey Design** Understanding the full path from discovery and enquiry through to booking, communication, delivery and feedback. **CRM & Sales Operations** Designing practical systems around how the sales team actually works. **Digital Transformation** Moving processes from manual, disconnected journeys towards more connected and automated workflows. **Content & Communications** Improving website copy, proposals, confirmations, follow-ups and customer-facing information. **Commercial Systems Thinking** Connecting pricing, supplier costs, proposals, CRM data and sales activity. **Conversion Thinking** Looking for friction that could stop a customer progressing and improving the experience around it. **Data & Reporting** Reviewing monthly performance, investigating changes and translating figures into decisions for the business. **Continuous Improvement** Treating repeated questions, complaints and workarounds as signals that the underlying process needs attention. **Self-Directed Learning** Learning new systems, tools and platforms independently whenever the business needed a new capability. **Resourcefulness** Designing around technical, financial and operational limitations rather than waiting for perfect tools or unlimited budgets. ## The lesson I carry forward Technology is rarely the strategy. The useful question is: **What are we trying to make easier for the person using it?** Sometimes the answer is automation. Sometimes it's better information. Sometimes it's a new process. Sometimes it's a person. The job is to understand the journey well enough to know the difference. ### Interested in Working Together? ![ACE - Logo (400 x 400 px) (400 x 250 px) (2)](https://gemmaheath.com/hubfs/ACE%20-%20Logo%20(400%20x%20400%20px)%20(400%20x%20250%20px)%20(2).png "ACE - Logo (400 x 400 px) (400 x 250 px) (2)") - [Home](https://gemmaheath.com?hsLang=en) - [Experience & Commercial Strategy Studio](https://gemmaheath.com/experience-commercial-strategy-studio?hsLang=en) - [About](https://gemmaheath.com/about?hsLang=en) © 2026. All rights reserved.