CASE STUDY 4: FORD

The Challenge

Ford's online booking system was leaking leads. Analytics showed an 84% abandonment rate on the first form page and a completion rate of less than 1%. The root cause was structural: two separate, conflicting form journeys existed for different dealer services, forcing users to self-select a path they did not understand. The result was confusion, frustration, and lost sales opportunities.

The Approach

My brief was to increase engagement and conversion by rebuilding the booking experience from the ground up.

• Journey consolidation: I merged the two legacy form paths into one unified system, removing the need for users to make an upfront choice they were not qualified to make.

• Step reduction: I stripped the flow to its minimum viable steps, removing redundant data requests and pre-filling known information where possible.

• Single-action focus: Each screen was redesigned to present one clear decision or action, reducing cognitive load and decision fatigue.

• Validation through prototyping: I built a fully functional Axure prototype covering happy and unhappy paths, which was used in stakeholder workshops and developer hand-off.

I also held regular client presentations and worked directly with Ford's IT team to ensure the new flows were technically feasible and aligned with back-end constraints.

The Outcome

• Reduced a 7-step booking journey to 3 steps.

• Projected 50–60% reduction in form abandonment based on UX best-practice benchmarks for automotive lead-gen flows of similar complexity.

• The unified journey eliminated the "path choice" friction point that was driving the majority of early drop-off.

• The functional prototype was signed off by stakeholders and moved into development for launch the following year.