CMH Heli-skiing

With 12 unique lodges, 9 distinct programs, and 350+ trips offered every season, CMH needed an intuitive booking system to guide, educate, and convert new heli-skiers.

I led this project from the initial client pitch, through discovery, and to final delivery.

As the Product Lead, I was responsible for strategy and overall direction. Partnering with a seasoned Art Director helped to add visual polish and elevate the branding elements. And close collaboration with the Technology team ensured the implementation details were up to spec.

The Problem

Following a redesign the year prior, I conducted a post-launch review and identified a critical bottleneck in the path to purchase.

The "trip grid" — the #1 most visited page on CMH's website — wasn't effectively converting potential customers. The page featured a sprawling table with hundreds of bookable trips, and was causing decision paralysis. Although customers were visiting the page, they weren't taking the next step to purchase.

Why it mattered:

Interviews with stakeholders across the organization revealed the many ways the booking flow wasn't doing it's job.

• Sales: New customers didn't feel confident committing thousands of dollars based on a spreadsheet.
• Marketing: Despite the premium pricepoint, the grid did little to differentiate the heli-skiing operation's various lodges and programs.
• Business impact: The most important page in the sales flow wasn't leading to conversions.

The Solution

Booking a heli-skiing trip shouldn't feel like a budget version of Excel, it should feel reflect the prestige experience CMH is offering, reflecting the modern booking-focused travel sites customers are used to, such as Expedia and Airbnb.

Based on discussion with the technology team, we proposed a modern React web app. Our goal was to guide users through decision making (instead of overwhelming them with options), educate potential customers on the experience (sharing what to expect from each lodge), and offer a premium mobile experience (60% of traffic).

Heli-dreamers

The priority audience for this project was new customers or so-called "heli-dreamers." These experienced skiers and riders might be considering their first-ever heli trip but haven't yet taken the plunge. These first timers represent CMH's strongest growth opportunity — especially in an aging sport.

Generally speaking, they're users who are excited, but unsure what to expect from a multi-day heli-skiing excursion. They tend to be:

• unfamiliar with the lodges and/or programs
• new to heli-skiing (first-time customers)
• comparison shopping with other operators
• concerned about optimizing their trip
• encumbered by unanswered questions

Design Principles

As with any software project, there were a thousand details to consider. Here are a few of the more important ones:

• Function over style. As a design team, we made a conscious decision to prioritize functional usability over flashy visuals.
• Education throughout. To support new customers, we provided educational content throughout the booking experience including what to expect, sample itineraries, skill ratings, and terrain overviews for each lodge.
• Mobile-first design. For mobile users, we worked hard to ensure that the interface scaled gracefully. Our goal was to make the experience look and feel like a sophisticated app rather than a simple website.
• Attention to detail. At $10k or more per trip, every detail matters. I spent extra time QA'ing and working with the development team to make sure the final experience was perfectly polished.

First-Timer Quiz

One of the biggest barriers for converting heli-dreamers was uncertainty:

Which lodge is right for me? Am I a strong enough skier? Will I be able to keep up? Is a multi-day lodge trip worth the cost?

To address this, I designed an interactive "cosmo-style" quiz that recommended the most appropriate lodges for each user based on five easy questions. The question flow and recommendation logic for the quiz were based on informal screening used by veteran sales team members.

1. Are you a skier or snowboarder?
2. How would you describe your skiing ability?
3. On average, how many days do you ski per season?
4. What type of terrain do you prefer to ski?
5. Describe your ideal heli-skiing experience. (pick up to three)

Testing

With limited budget for formal usability testing, I conducted guerilla tests with a handful of friends and colleagues who matched the ideal customer profile (i.e. experienced skiers and riders considering their first heli trip).

Using a clickable prototype, we identified several small but meaningful usability tweaks including changing the order of filter options, adjusting row expansion behaviour, and adding per-day pricing.

Overall, the designs tested well. Users were able to complete booking tasks without assistance, and commented that the experience felt "modern" and "easy to use."

The Results

Precise metrics for this project are confidential, however the outcomes were positive:

• Post-launch surveys showed improvement in customer satisfaction.
• The platform became CMH's new design standard, with core marketing properties updated to reflect the look and feel.
• CMH experienced year-over-year booking growth for three consecutive seasons.
• Both the booking platform and planning quiz remain in use to this day.

But the most significant outcome wasn't immediate. When Alterra Mountain Company acquired CMH and went looking for a partner to launch Ikon Pass (the #2 multi-resort ski pass in the world), our work with CMH had already proven we understood the industry and the audience.

That relationship turned into a 5-year engagement with Ikon Pass that defined the next phase of my career.