When information isn’t obvious, customers will find it, a web site learns
One given of a web site is that you never know how consumers will use it. Take the case of Outrigger Enterprises Inc. When executives of the operator of hotels and resorts wanted to learn how customers were using Outrigger.com, they analyzed page load times, abandonment rates, how much effort it took a visitor to arrive at a web destination and how customers moved through the site.
In the analysis they noticed that many would-be travelers clicked on the Reservations button, entered information, viewed results, then clicked on the Back button and went through the entire process over again. What, they wondered, were customers doing?
Further analysis showed that customers were trying to find room prices. Outrigger.com did not show the prices of rooms until a customer made a reservation. So customers would make a reservation, find the price, then, if they were looking for something less expensive, they would start over again to find a more suitable price. “The reservation engine was being used as a search engine,” says Outrigger’s web analytics vendor WebCriteria Inc.
The cumbersome process made it harder for customers to find the information they needed to make a purchase. And uncovering that impediment is key to making a web site successful, web analytics vendors say. “When you look at measuring success of a web site, you need to ask what you want people to do at your site that will improve results for your business,” says Jim Plymale, vice president of marketing for WebCriteria. “If I’m a retailer, I want someone to buy something, so I want to know how I move someone closer to accomplishing that job.”
Back...
