Editor’s note: Today’s blog post comes from Bart Oosterholt and Rens van den Berg, Founders of Social Deal. The Social Deal team shares how it enables customers to discover and navigate to the best experiences across the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany with Google Maps Platform,
At Social Deal, we help people discover the treasure trove of exciting experiences available in their own backyards. As the largest daily deal platform in the Benelux region, we bring customers a unique local perspective on towns and cities around the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, with our locally based sales managers perfectly placed to find local gems for our customers to enjoy each day, at discounted rates.
We are constantly innovating to provide our customers with the best experience. When we first launched our platform, we offered customers daily deals in the form of a list. Then, when we wanted users to be able to see where each individual deal was located, we decided to add a map view in our platform. Having built our customized platform from scratch, in house, our workflows are fully optimized for our business, so when we introduce new technology from external providers, we are careful to ensure they won’t slow our systems down. As Google Maps Platform was ubiquitous and the most familiar system for our customers, as well as the fastest, there was no question of us working with another provider.
We embedded our original maps feature from Google Maps Platform in 2018, confident that the customer experience would improve. When this proved to be the case, we followed up by introducing the Distance Matrix API, allowing customers to calculate distance and travel times from their location to their chosen deals, to find the deals that were most convenient for them.
A new way for customers to explore their neighborhoods
However, with our deals still being presented in a list format, it wasn’t immediately obvious to customers how close venues were to their homes, meaning certain experiences were being overlooked. We also noticed that customers were increasingly using our platform during trips to other cities that they weren’t familiar with, which meant that it was hard for them to understand at first glance where an experience was situated in relation to them
Working with Google Maps Platform partner Localyse, we set about developing a new feature that would allow customers to use a map to explore all the experiences on offer in any given area, be it their home town or somewhere further afield. By incorporating Places API and its Nearby Search functionality into our platform, Social Deal now enables customers to view their location on a map and zoom in or out to explore all the available experiences around them. They can filter deals by preference, scroll through available options in each area, or click on a deal for further information. This means customers are not only able to discover experiences local to them that they might otherwise have missed, they are also able to buy deals in close proximity to one another, so that they can enjoy them as part of the same trip.
Better experiences for both customers and partners
With Autocomplete, customers can search for any location in the city and see what experiences are on offer nearby, and with Directions, they can be directed straight to the venue with Google Maps Platform. With the ability to explore their neighborhoods in this new way, customers are now spending longer on our site and are coming back more often. Our bounce rate has dropped by 20%, while the improved customer experience has seen customer satisfaction increase by 10%.
Our 24,000 partners are benefiting, too, gaining more exposure to our growing user base of 80.5 million unique visitors, increasing occupancy rates and revenue, while attracting new local customers, who are now able to discover their venues more easily.
Local insights with global reach
As Social Deal grows, we are expanding into new markets, with the aim of bringing unforgettable local experiences to customers across the EU. This international expansion has been made far easier by Google Maps Platform, as its global reach means we are able launch our services quickly in any new region, confident that our customers will enjoy the same experience wherever they are.
With Google Maps Platform, there are no borders to our ambition to scale internationally. Wherever we go, we are confident that Google Maps Platform will help to take us there, while providing the insights our customers need to explore any city like a local.
For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.
