Case study
Taking the booking without the phone call.
St. Frederick’s Hotel in Douala was losing reservations to the gap between someone wanting a room and someone answering the phone. We built a website with one job: close that gap.
The problem
Every booking needed a human, and humans sleep.
Enquiries arrived by phone and WhatsApp at all hours. Someone had to check a book, confirm a room was free, quote a rate, and reply. If that took too long, the guest had already booked somewhere else.
The existing site did not help. It showed the hotel existed, but it could not tell anyone whether a room was available tonight, and it could not take a reservation. Every visitor became a message somebody had to answer.
The approach
Design the site around the booking, not around the brochure.
We started from the single action that matters to the business, and worked backwards. Everything that did not help a guest reach a confirmed reservation was cut or moved out of the way.
That meant real availability rather than a contact form, room pages rather than a gallery, and a flow short enough to complete on a phone with one hand.
What we built
Four decisions that shaped the site.
- Room pages that answer the real questionEvery room has its own page with photographs, what is included, and live availability. A guest can see whether the room they want is free on the night they want it, without messaging anyone.
- A reservation flow built for a phoneMost guests arrive on a mobile network, often on patchy data. The booking flow was kept short, the form fields minimal, and every step tested on real devices before launch.
- Rates the team controlsRates and availability are edited from a dashboard by hotel staff. No developer, no invoice, and no waiting until Monday to change a price for the weekend.
- Structured for searchHotel and room schema, proper headings, and pages built around what people actually search for when looking for a room in Douala.
The outcome
Reservations that complete themselves.
Guests can now find a room, see that it is free, and reserve it without anyone at the hotel being involved. Enquiries that used to arrive as a message at midnight arrive as a booking instead.
The team updates rates and availability directly, so pricing keeps up with the season without a developer in the loop.
Your project next
Does your website close the sale, or start a conversation you have to finish?
If people have to message you to do business, the website is doing half its job. Tell us the goal and we will come back with the plan.
