State of the Internet Union Stronger, But Plenty of Room for Improvement Exists, Reports Keynote
Leader in Internet Performance Measurement and Web-Based Customer Research Evaluates State of Internet Industry
Top Three Consumer Frustrations and Key Drivers of Customer Satisfaction Revealed
Top Sites in Speed and Reliability Recognized
25,000 Online Consumer Experiences and Millions of Web Site Speed and Reliability Metrics Provide Basis for “State of Internet Union" Analysis
SAN MATEO, Calif., — February 2, 2005 — Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN"), The Internet Performance Authority®, announced today its first annual “State of the Internet Union," a summary of the sites with the best overall customer experience, and “top frustrations” and “top satisfactions" as experienced by more than 25,000 consumers online as measured through Keynote’s syndicated customer experience research – and a recap of the fastest and most reliable Web sites as measured by Keynote’s Web transaction performance indices throughout 2004.
Keynote’s 2004 data shows that while the overall state of the Internet is growing stronger, there is much room for improvement on both fronts: customer experience and e-business IT health.
“Although the state of the Internet union is stronger, consumers are still expressing many frustrations with leading commercial Web sites and much more can be done in the area of customer experience management (CEM),” said Dr. Bonny Brown, director of research and public services at Keynote. “In addition, many sites can also improve their technical performance. This year significant site availability issues occurred among very well known retail and travel Web sites, especially around the holidays, pointing to the need to pay increased attention to e-business IT health and service level management (SLM).”
Top Three Online Consumer Frustrations
Keynote’s online customer experience research studies show that when consumers become frustrated with a specific company’s Web site, they are highly inclined to jump over to a competitor site – and lower their overall perceptions of the brand. A summary assessment of Keynote studies reveals common frustrations across the Web:
1. Limited Information: One of the most common frustrations for consumers is when sites provide limited information on the products/services being offered. “In a medium that gives so much access to information it may seem counter-intuitive, but many sites are frustrating consumers by not providing enough product or service information,” said Dr. Brown.
2. Poor Search and Comparison Functions: Consumers expect to be able to search and compare products/offerings easily online, and become frustrated when these functions are unavailable or perform poorly.
3. Too Many Steps in Registration/Purchase Process: Another pet peeve of consumers is when Web sites require registration and/or login name and password – prior to viewing certain Web pages or purchasing a product/service, and complicated processes. “Consumers use the Internet because it makes their life easier,” said Dr. Brown. “Yet registration and setting up a user ID and password is a hassle, and companies need to make sure there is good value for doing so, or they will lose a customer.”
Top Three Reasons for Online Customer Satisfaction
Keynote studies have consistently confirmed that sites delivering a positive online experience also augment brand perceptions and customer loyalty, as well as increase likelihood to purchase. The factors with the greatest influence over customer satisfaction are:
1. Good Site Design & Organization: Frustrations are minimized and customer satisfaction levels are higher when a site is well designed and organized. In addition to minimizing obvious errors, such as broken links, a well-designed and organized site meets consumer expectations and preferences in terms of functions, navigation and aesthetics. “It should come as no surprise that design and organization impact the user experience, but what is surprising is the number of design problems found on many of the leading Web sites,” said Dr. Brown. “Sites can greatly improve their online experience with interface design changes – this usually has greater impact on customer satisfaction than the addition of new functions or technological enhancements to a site.”
2. Simple, Smooth Purchase Process: The registration and purchase processes are another leading driver of customer satisfaction. When these processes are simple, quick and frustration-free, sites earn high marks with consumers. The smallest of frustrations in these processes can quickly sour a customer – and even turn them away. “We still hear customers relate stories where they really wanted to give a site their money, and they can’t figure out how.” Said Brown. The best sites make sure customers can operate the shopping cart, and minimize the amount of information and the number of steps required to complete the process.”
3. Excellent Online Customer Support: Consumers are conducting self-service transactions on the Web, and when they run into problems they expect to have customer support readily available. Sites that bury their customer support information deep within their site further provoke frustration. Factors that impact off-line business, such as pricing, product satisfaction and availability are also key drivers of customer satisfaction online; however, in the online environment, excellent customer support often carries equal weight to product and price factors.
Sites Topping List for Best Customer Experience
The Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings are competitive benchmarking reports examining customer experience at the leading Web sites in specific industries. Sites topping the Keynote CE Rankings performed best, in aggregate, across all 250+ metrics and indices measured during the study, including those for customer satisfaction, purchase intent and brand impact.
The sites topping Keynote’s Customer Experience Rankings in 2004 were:
Banking – Customers
1. National City
Banking – Prospective Customers
1. Bank of America
Credit Card – Customers
1. Capital One
Credit Card – Prospective Customers
1. American Express
Travel – Hotel and Lodging
1. Expedia
Travel – Rental Car
1. Travelocity
Retail
1. Amazon.com
Computer Hardware
1. Dell
Online Dating
1. Yahoo! Personals
Search Engines
1. Google
Sites Topping List for Best Transaction Speed and Reliability
Keynote’s Web Transaction Performance Indices specify a common end-to-end business process or task that can be measured reliably and accurately at each of the sites selected for inclusion in a vertical transition index. Speed and reliability measurements are taken hourly from the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. The sites earning Keynote Performance Awards in 2004 were:
Broker
Best Transaction Speed: E*TRADE FINANCIAL (NYSE: ET)
Best Transaction Reliability: E*TRADE FINANCIAL
Banking
Best Transaction Speed: Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)
Best Transaction Reliability: SunTrust
Retail
Best Transaction Speed: Eddie Bauer (OTC: SPGLQ)
Best Transaction Reliability: Eddie Bauer
Airline
Best Transaction Speed: Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV)
Best Transaction Reliability: Northwest Airlines (Nasdaq:
WAC)
Hotel
Best Transaction Speed: Crowne Plaza (NYSE: IHG)
Best Transaction Reliability: Wyndham (AMEX: WBR)
Travel Agency
Best Transaction Speed: Expedia (Nasdaq: IACI)
Best Transaction Reliability: CheapTickets (NYSE: CD)
Government
Best Transaction Speed: U.S. Food & Drug Administration
Best Transaction Reliability: IRS
Background on Keynote’s "State of the Internet Union" Analysis
As part of its Web-based customer research, Keynote examines consumer attitudes and behavior on the Web across a variety of vertical industries including the travel, financial services, retail and other consumer product and service industries. It does the same from a site speed and reliability perspective through its market-leading Web transaction performance indices in a variety of vertical industries.
In the past year, Keynote published reports examining more than two dozen industries, evaluated more than 200 leading Web sites and captured the attitudes and behaviors of more than 25,000 consumers as they interacted with these Web sites. In addition to traditional opinion data, Keynote’s proprietary technology allows for the collection of detailed qualitative and behavioral data as users perform typical tasks at leading Web sites.
From the perspective of e-business IT health, Keynote collects and aggregates millions of Web site speed and reliability metrics from its Web transaction performance indices covering the following industries: broker, credit card, banking, retail, government, news media, airline, hotel and travel agency.
Keynote’s State of the Internet analysis summarizes a year’s worth of research and discusses the leading consumer frustrations – and the leading “drivers” of customer satisfaction across the Web. As part of its analysis, Keynote also recapped the best sites in key vertical industries as determined by Keynote’s Customer Experience Rankings and Web Transaction Performance Indices.
For more information about Keynote’s syndicated customer experience research:
http://www.keynote.com/solutions/cem_syndicated_research.html
For more information about Keynote’s Performance Awards: http://www.keynote.com/news_events/performance_awards.html
For more information about Keynote’s Web transaction indices and the methodology behind them:
http://www.keynote.com/downloads/whitepapers/webtxn-methodology052704.pdf
About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”), The Internet Performance Authority®, is the worldwide leader in e-business performance management services. Over 2,100 corporate IT departments and 19,000 individual subscribers rely on Keynote’s growing range of measurement and monitoring, service level and customer experience management services to improve e-business performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and increasing profitability.
Keynote is viewed as The Internet Performance Authority due to the company’s global infrastructure of over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over 40 million Internet performance measurements, frequent media citations quoting Keynote`s Web performance data and analysis, the company’s market-leading Web performance indices for vertical markets and leading customer research that provides critical business insight into online customer experiences, industry trends and competitive Web strategies.
Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at 650-403-2400.
Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
© 2005 Keynote Systems, Inc.
Public Relations Contacts:
Dan Berkowitz
Keynote Systems, Inc.
(650) 403-3305
dberkowitz@keynote.com
Dan Cahill
Roaring PR (for Keynote)
(415) 552-3999
dcahill@roaringcommunications.com
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