FREEDyourMind

True North: Day 1

I don't have much time before heading off to Day 2 of our user conference, True North, but wanted to get in a quick word about Day 1. We have a great turnout, and I always love meeting our clients and hearing what's on their minds, how they use our data, and what they think we could or should be doing differently. We've gotten some great ideas in the past by listening to what our customers need.

Our keynote yesterday was Shane Atchison from Zaaz, who talked about all the cutting-edge ways that companies can marry analytics and creative to get the best end result. The refrain was optimize, optimize, optimize.

David VanAmburg showed us why customer satisfaction is especially important when the economy is faltering . . . research from Michigan actually shows that customers will spend money with companies that satisfy them whether or not they have it!

The panel on customer-guided site redesign was great, and our user-panels always generate the most discussion and questions. While I'm sure everyone loves to hear what we think about customer satisfaction, they really get the most from their peers. Matt Cardwell from Quicken Loans, John Fitzgerald from Automotive News, and Paul Iagnocco from Kellogg shared details of how they used our data to inform major changes. I had heard some of those details but not all of them.

After lunch, Carla Borsoi from Ask.com did a case study about how Ask used satisfaction data to guide a major relaunch, and she shared some insights about how U.S. and U.K. searches and searchers differ.

We did a benchmarking panel including Harvey Tzucker from CMS talking about rewarding affiliate sites based on c-sat scores.

That afternoon, there were sessions on the link between customer sat and financials, how to get management buy-in, the ACSI methodology, and multi-channel measurement strategies, all of which I plan to be blogging about in more depth in the near future. And I want to write more about the insights each of these speakers shared, but I am late to breakfast...more later...

True North: Next Week

Well folks, we’re gearing up for our second user group, to be held next week in Ann Arbor. We called it: True North: Charting a Customer- Centric Course to Online Success. It will be two days of case studies, practical advice, panel discussions, and expert insights about how to use voice of customer to guide a successful e-business strategy. Our keynote is Shane Atchison, co-founder of Zazz and co-author of Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smarter Business Decisions.

We have a great line up of speakers and panelists, including:

• American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) – David Van Amburg, Managing Director

• Ask.com - Carla Borsoi, VP of Research and Analytics

• Automotive News - John Fitzgerald

• Borders – Kevin Ertell, VP of E-Commerce

• Forbes.com – Bruce Rogers, Vice President of Marketing

• Kellogg Company – Paul Iagnocco, Director, Ebusiness

• Quicken Loans – Matt Cardwell, Website Marketing Director

• ForeSee Results - Russ Merz, PhD, Research Director

• St. John Health System –  Pam Hedman, Interactive Marketing Manager

I don’t know how much time I’ll have for blogging, but I’ll definitely try to check in. These conferences are useful to our clients because they get to share best practices and see how others are implementing change, but it’s useful for me, too, to hear what’s on clients’ minds and what’s keeping them up at night.

Hope to see you next week in Ann Arbor!

Web Analytics Wednesday . . . on Tuesday

It was great to be able to participate in and help sponsor the Web Analytics Wednesday gathering in San Francisco during the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.  Eric Peterson along with others pulled off the largest Web Analytics Wednesday in history...and it was held on a Tuesday!  Just goes to show you what an open bar can do!  There was great conversation and some fun!

Takeaways from eMetrics San Francisco

Just back last night from the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Francisco. I had the honor of speaking after Tom Davenport; celebrated author of Competing on Analytics: the New Science of Winning.  Tom's presentation was excellent and gave the conference a great foundation and focus.  Tom did a good job of explaining the potential competitive advantage that can be gained by using analytics in both your strategic and tactical decisions, with great examples from companies like Netflix; Harrahs and even the Boston Red Sox.

This year's summit centered on bringing multiple metrics together, including customer satisfaction/voice of customer.  It reminded me of the early days at the eMetrics conferences where the focus was almost exclusively on clickstream analytics.  It is great to see the industry moving forward and as a result providing better insight.  If you haven't checked it out yet, there is a great white paper on the web metric ecosystem by Eric Peterson.  You can get a copy here.

Congratulations to Jim Sterne for once again putting on a great event that not only helps educate the newcomers to the web analytics/metrics world, but also provides a great forum for those of us that have been around this industry for a while.

At eMetrics Next Week

I’m off to foggy San Francisco next week for the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. I’m speaking Monday at 10 a.m. about how to quantify the contribution of the online experience to a company’s overall strategic goals. You can also stop by our booth (#21 and 22) to say hello. We’re also going to be sponsoring the Web Metrics Wednesday gathering at a nightclub called Fluid (662 Mission Street). Oddly enough, Web Metrics Wednesday will be meeting on, wait for it, TUESDAY, from 6:30-8:30. Anyone can go, not just eMetrics attendees, and you can register here.

Hope to see some of you there! This is usually a great show.

How Will the Economy Affect E-Business?

From RIS News:

 “It is a sign of tough economic times. Retail store closings are up in 2008 by 25 percent year-over-year as the national economy continues to deteriorate. The International Council of Shopping Centers estimates there will be 5,770 store closings in 2008 compared to 4,603 in 2007. Surging gas prices, higher food costs and powerful inflationary forces are squeezing consumers and retailers alike.”

 And from the San Jose Mercury News:

Electronic commerce has grown about 22 percent in the past two years, said Hal Varian, [Google’s chief economist], who spoke at a forum on the state of the Internet economy at Google's new  Washington office. Ed Garrubbo, chairman of the Electronic Retailing Association, said online sales jumped 17 percent in the first quarter of this year. 

"The lesson here is that the economic slowdown is not an Internet slowdown," Varian said. "The Internet is looking pretty strong compared to other sectors."

I wonder if the slow down for brick-and-mortar retail is actually a boon for the e-commerce industry.

Research published in Claes Fornell’s recent book, The Satisfied Customer: Winners and Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference, he proves that a customer’s ability to spend is not necessarily a predictor of his willingness to spend. The best predictor, as crazy as it may sound, is whether or not that customer is satisfied. A satisfied customer will spend even if they don’t have the money.

Study after study shows that the online channel is the bright spot in any industry in terms of customer satisfaction. In the February release of the ACSI, we saw online retail (81.6 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale) trounce offline retail, which scored 74.2. Our study with Forbes about online financial services showed that customer satisfaction with online banking (82) outpaced satisfaction with banking overall (78).

So, in general, websites satisfy people more than other channels. Add that to increasing gas prices, and I think we have a few good reasons for people to move more and more of their business online. They can conduct business anytime, anywhere, and they don’t have to worry about inconsistency in service. And if the companies they interact with online are doing a good job satisfying customers, it might not even matter how much money they have!

My bet is that we will continue to see growth in the online channels of industries that are starting to feel the pinch of tough economic times, gas prices, and inflation.

Online Banking Outperforms Other Financial Services Industries

Our latest research with Forbes.com shows that online banking is vastly outperforming other online financial services industries. Banks scores an 82 on the ACSI's 100-point scale (up 12% or 9 points from the 2003 score of 73), while investing and credit card websites were both at 75. The online banks are clearly setting a high bar. A score of 82 makes online banking the bright spot in the industry overall (offline banking scored a 78 when measured by the ACSI in late 2007).

Most notably, we found that highly satisfied online banking customers are 31 percent more likely to buy additional services from the bank and 54 percent more likely to recommend the bank to others.

You can read more about the study in BusinessWeek or download the full report here.

New Google Search Feature

Internet Retailer had a story earlier this week about a new search feature at Google:

“Google has launched Search Within a Site, a feature that enables searchers to conduct site searches of content, retail and other web sites from a Google results page. A search of “Newegg,” for example, brings up the Newegg.com home page as the first result. Previously, the results page would present listings of links to any number of sites that include references to Newegg. Now, the results page still brings up all those listings, but a search window labeled “Search newegg.com” appears immediately below the first listing, the retailer’s home page, enabling searchers on Google to conduct a new search that focuses not on the web at large but exclusively on Newegg.com.”

It’s controversial because 1) on the Google results page for a site search, a competitor’s ad might show up. 2) it seems unlikely that Google can present a search as thorough as going to the site itself and doing a search from there.

It’s just the next step (one we probably should have been expecting) in building loyalty to Google instead of the retailer/auto dealer/ manufacturer’s site. We’ve done a lot of research on the value of different methods of customer acquisition (promo emails, shopping search engines, referrals, etc) and our research shows that search engines drive people who are substantially less loyal and less likely to buy.

What do you think? Is Google going too far? If you run a site, do you think this will help you or hurt you?

Honda.com Has Best Auto Website

Automotive websites have a tough mission: they need to inspire brand loyalty and encourage sales and dealer visits without actually selling cars online, since most people will obviously buy a car in person.  Their mission is not unlike other brand-based websites that don’t conduct e-commerce, but the auto industry doesn’t seem to pay nearly as much attention to the web channel as the consumer-packaged good industry, for example, does.

Therefore, we’re launching the inaugural ForeSee Results Automotive Website Satisfaction Index, and we released our first set of findings today. Read about them in the Detroit Free Press or feel free to download a copy of the study from our website.

Here’s what we found: On the ACSI’s 100-point scale, Honda.com did best and NissanUSA.com did worst. The industry aggregate was 78. Individual automotive website scores are as follows:

    * Honda.com: 80
    * Chrysler.com: 79
    * FordVehicles.com: 79
    * Chevrolet.com: 77
    * Toyota.com: 77
    * NissanUSA.com: 76

The study also found that Honda.com does the best job leveraging the website to get visitors to buy a vehicle or visit a dealer. Chevrolet.com, FordVehicles.com, and NissanUSA.com were tied for being the least likely to influence customers to purchase a vehicle. Visitors to FordVehicles.com were the least likely to visit a dealer.

Considering the fact that top e-retailers like Amazon have scores in the high eighties, these guys still have a lot of work to do. However, it is impressive that Honda is doing such a great job leveraging their website to encourage dealer visits and sales.

The commentary has some specific usability examples that may be of interest.

The State of Our Union is Strong

Watching discussion of all the thorny political issues raised in this campaign has me thinking about the state of our union. Since ForeSee Results was founded in late 2001, we have: 

• Over 28 million completed customer surveys measuring satisfaction with online marketing and e-commerce initiatives, including:
  • Over 9 million completed customer surveys in 2007.
  • Over 1 million completed customer surveys in December 2007.
  • Over 500,000 surveys presented in a single day last holiday season.
• More than 30 benchmarks, including:
  • Industry benchmarks like retail, financial services, healthcare, federal government, and product companies and
  • Functional benchmarks that measure specific aspects of an online experience, such as browse, checkout, fulfillment, etc.
• Over 550 active measures across dozens of industries
• Major new investment in functionality, technology, and delivery.

It’s great to see that the ACSI has become such an industry standard online, and it’s an exciting time to be in this business!