eTyres - a "tiring" UX blunder
Do you love exploring quirks of UX on sites that should know better? Do you have an interest in the tyre repair industry? Do you just enjoy my free-flowing writing style and hilarious image captions? This blog post has you covered.
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| I tried using the fancy generative AI feature to make a header image. But it was disappointingly pants. So I reverted to an old-skool stock image. |
It's been a while since I've written one of my highly acclaimed blog posts commenting on the UX of a website...so here goes:
My wife hit a pothole last week, punctured a tyre. It happens. She was collecting my daughter from my parents' house. So we just left the car there and my parents kindly gave wife and daughter a lift home. We'd just get the tyre fixed at my parents' house the next day.
The internet is veritably awash with places to fix these things at your home...but I generally go with the established brands...Black Circles, TyresOnTheDrive, eTyres...
So, I went through each of these to find the best price for next day fitting. Eventually I found eTyres to be the best option. Booked, paid, confirmed. Awesome.
Well, not totally awesome...I was left with the lingering worry that the booking confirmation only had my home address on it - the billing address - rather than the address where we actually want the car fixed. And actually, thinking about it, did they even ask for the other address?
Next morning, I called them up to make sure they'd got the right address. Turns out they didn't need the address, because I hadn't booked a mobile fitter...I had just booked to take the car to a garage. Furthermore, I couldn't change to a mobile fitter, because they have no coverage in our area.
"That's weird", I thought, "how did I manage to do that?". In any case, I cancelled the order with eTyres and found somewhere else (at great expense) that could fix the tyre same day. Tyre sorted. Back on the road.
But, dear reader, you know what I'm liked when my curiosity is piqued...How could this have happened to me!? I simply had to know. To google!
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| I have nothing witty to say about this image. |
Cool. So we scroll past the sponsored listing (everyone scrolls past the sponsored listings, right?) and bash the top one... "Mobile Tyre Fitting" - just what I need!
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| Let's just leave the contrast ratio on that hyperlink for a giggle on another occasion... |
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| Slightly truncated image to protect the privacy of my parents, who I love very much! |
Wicked! Plenty of fitters to choose from, and the closest one recommended in pretty yellow. Clickety-click.
Aside: I should have paid attention to that 2 star rating. I actually spent a while on hold to that garage to try and sort this issue out. Fair to say the customer service I overheard has...room for improvement.
And that, really, is that. From here you follow the process through, choose an installation slot, choose the tyres you want, stick your payment in. Exceptionally easy. They were right.
Except it's not:
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| Hands up who spotted this first time? |
.....aaaaaand there it is.
See, whilst I'd gone to a page entitled "Mobile Tyre Fitting" and clicked to "Check coverage", they actually just showed me a map of garages you can take your car to.
They were relying on me, a user on the happy path, to notice the words "Select this garage fitter" on the big green CTA and understand what that means. It means that this is not a garage that can do the mobile fitting I've asked for. This is a garage that can provide a totally different service I've not asked for, and which just ends up costing me money when I book the wrong thing.
I'm pretty sure there are nicer ways to inform users that there's no coverage in their area ("Sorry, there are no mobile fitters in your area. Would you like to search for a garage fitting instead?" maybe), but even if eTyres simply pre-applied the "Mobile Fitter" filter for you, you would at least get to this triumph of UI quicker:
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| Yes, I drive a Honda Jazz. No, I'm not 85. |
So, that's it. Case closed. Just a simple clunk in the UX that results in customers buying totally the wrong thing.
What have we learnt? The importance of QA, or E2Es specifically? Never underestimate your customers' pre-disposition to blindly clickety-click along the happy path? Use "recommendation" features only for products that match the customer's need? Or that someone better give James a job soon, so he has less time for writing blog posts?
Probably just the first three things. Totally.