Delivering best practice student experience using human-centric design.
A fresh new look and best-in-class student accommodation selection journey enabled CLV to move forward with a more unified global team and streamlined processes.
Campus Living Villages (CLV) are global student accommodation specialists. As the only student accommodation provider working across four regions and six countries, CLV is committed to creating tailored student communities that suit the unique culture of each campus, University or city they work with. CLV proudly houses over 45,000 students across Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Wales and the United States.
CLV strives to give students more than just accommodation - they are seeking to provide its residents with a home and a community. In order to deliver on that goal, and recruit /retain students in an increasingly challenging post-pandemic environment, CLV undertook a Digital Transformation project. They want to ensure their marketing, communication, IT, and digital support services are meeting the needs of the ever increasing demands of the new generation of potential residents and are delivering a seamless and unified customer experience.
Deepend did a fantastic job to arrive at some really innovative design solutions to our business challenges. At all times the visual design was driven by comprehensive customer research and we were able to pinpoint to stakeholders exactly which research insight drove which feature. This meant our many and varied stakeholders, as we bought three separate regions into one website, were able to align on a clear brand and digital vision – a huge achievement.
Harriet Geoghegan - Senior Marketing, Communication & Digital Strategist
Engaged as CLV’s Digital Customer Experience (DCX) partner, Deepend set about understanding the complexities of the organisation and the expectations of the Gen Z student cohort.
Multiple stakeholder workshop sessions uncovered unique business process complexities for each of the CLV markets. The user and business requirements exposed in Phase 1 formed the basis of the work of Phase 2, “Solution Design”. Context sessions with internal stakeholders also revealed the need for creating an evolved digital brand that allows teams across four different markets to come together under one umbrella for the first time.
In the “Immersion” phase we conducted comprehensive research including website data analysis, competitor analysis, 1-to-1 user interviews, experience and affinity mapping plus stakeholder context sessions – all across CLV’s 4 geographic regions.
We conducted 44 virtual user interviews across 4 continents with a number of personas: existing and prospective students, their parents, agents and co-sharing friends, in order to map out and understand the true complexity of the requirements of the entire ecosphere.
Deepend conducted 20 stakeholder interviews, competitor reviews and data discovery to understand how the industry is moving and evolving in the post pandemic world.
Co-design workshops were a great way to include students, stakeholders, and subject matter experts to drive viable, feasible, and desirable creative outcomes.
We use ideation tools to crack complex problems that are varied and adaptable. This provides an insightful, user centric input into the next phase of the project, Solution Design.
This includes affinity mapping, user journeys and personas development based on interviews with the end users.
Context sessions and user interviews highlighted an opportunity to optimise and streamline the existing booking process. To modernise and refresh the brand. Regional nuances within CLV markets called for tighter integration of the business processes, user expectations and the brand guidelines.
Deepend undertook an extensive UX audit of the room booking processes in each region. In collaboration with the client, the business logic for displaying and booking rooms was updated and agreed upon by all regions, delivering on a best-in-class integrated user experience.
Deepend was also engaged to evolve the digital brand style to reflect the expectations of crucial Gen Z user groups and unify the branding of CLV’s four distinct markets.
Deepend designed high-fidelity interactive prototypes for use in client collaboration sessions. Bringing to life what the user will see helped internal stakeholders work through the decision process needed to create a new integrated journey.
Result Listing
Uncovered the underlying need for assurance and mapped how we can answer this need with every action on the new site
Delivered human centered, engaging and relevant integrated digital experience for perspective and existing Generation Z customers. through rigorous research, customer segmentation, affinity mapping and user behaviour analysis using website data
Reduced inventory display by 80% and designed seamless, entirely online 4-step room booking
Re-engineered and digitised legacy and offline business processes across 4 regions, delivering streamlined digital transformation for a multinational business
Created an updated global brand, uniting all four regions under one banner for the first time
Engaged stakeholders across CLVs geographic spread into transforming their unique online presentations into one global brand that brings them under one umbrella for the first time, allowing them to supercharge their marketing by working together while retaining the flexibility for each to inject their own local flair
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