When we started working with Deem in 2018, their enterprise travel platform required 11 steps to complete a booking. Average time: 425 seconds. NPS: 19.
Seven years later, the booking flow takes 3 steps. Average time is 127 seconds. NPS is 54. Adoption went up 47% in the first quarter after the redesign launched. The platform has won 22 industry awards for usability and design.
Understanding the real problem
The surface problem was obvious: too many screens, too many clicks, too much friction. But enterprise travel is not consumer travel. You cannot just simplify the flow by removing screens. Every step exists because of a real constraint: policy enforcement, approval chains, expense codes, accessibility requirements, multi-leg itineraries.
We spent the first three months observing. Not redesigning. Watching real users book real trips. The patterns that emerged were not what the analytics suggested.
The biggest drop-off was not at a specific step. It was at a specific moment: when the user had to switch mental context. From searching to comparing. From selecting to approving. Each transition required a cognitive reset that the UI was not helping with.
The design decisions
The redesign consolidated steps by keeping the user in the same mental context. Search and compare happened on the same screen. Selection and policy review happened inline. Approvals were surfaced proactively rather than appearing as blockers at the end.
Three design decisions had the most impact. First: progressive disclosure. Policy information appeared only when relevant, not on every screen. Second: persistent context. The trip summary stayed visible throughout the booking, so users never lost track of where they were. Third: smart defaults. Corporate travel patterns are predictable. Pre-filling the most likely choices reduced decision fatigue.
Accessibility as architecture
The platform was eventually customized for Apple, which required meeting their stringent accessibility requirements. We had built WCAG AA+ compliance into the redesign from the start — not as a retrofit.
This turned out to matter beyond compliance. Screen-reader-compatible flows tend to also be keyboard-navigable flows, which tend to also be flows that are easier to use on mobile. Accessibility constraints pushed us toward cleaner architecture.
The outcome
The metrics speak clearly: booking time dropped by 70%, satisfaction scores nearly tripled, adoption went up 47%. But the number we return to most often is the engagement length: 7 years.
That kind of continuity only happens when the work is actually good. Not just the launch — the ongoing improvement, the edge cases handled, the consistency maintained across platforms and updates. We are proud of the numbers. We are more proud of how long the partnership lasted.