Project overview
Rent a bomb, the iconic Australian business started in Richmond in 1979 with six Holdens. It is now a national brand deserving of a quality website. When Intuitive IT took the project, Rent a Bomb's existing site suffered from some major issues.
- Unreliable - the site was constantly crashing and when it did work, the booking form miscalculated the costs. This caused user frustration for the visitor and inefficiencies for the Rent a Bomb staff.
- Slow - The site would in some instances take minutes to load driving visitors away
- Non-responsive - The site used an old and non-standard method for making content responsive on mobile devices. The mobile version was vastly different to the desktop and caused visitor confusion. Not only that, but some functionality, like the booking module, didn't work.
As Intuitive and Rent a Bomb worked through the initial concepts, we discovered that bookings from the website needed double handling to get the information into Rent a Bomb's booking system, RCM. So we decided to send the website bookings directly to RCM. This functionality, combined with a truly responsive and modern design formed the basis of this website rebuild.
Responsive design
Responsive website design is now a must for all website builds, and Rent a Bomb is no different. From visual designs and layouts, through to the booking form, our key concern was making sure the website would continue to be functionality no matter the device it was viewed on. After an extensive iterative process of design, prototype, test and re-design, the final result sees the website maintain it's functionality without losing the visual appeal.
Customisation of bookings module
To increase efficiencies for the Rent A Bomb staff, we built their booking form to read and write from their booking management system called Rental Car Manager (RCM). Previously Rent a Bomb staff would have to update RCM with pricing changes and then make those same changes on the website. When a booking came through from the website, staff would again have to manually enter this information into RCM.
Our in-house developers, working with the RCM API were able to:
- Read and publish car details
- Send booking details direct into RCM
- Read promotional information
- Calculate pricing based on one source of information stored in RCM
- Integrate email notification so the head office is informed when a booking is made
We were also able to integrate Rent a Bomb's custom business rules into the website so that visitors stepped through the booking process as Rent a Bomb wanted and expected them to.
Finally, we were able to apply the same consistent style on the site to the booking form which gave a consistent user experience (UX).
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