FREEDyourMind

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.

Quarterly ACSI E-Gov Index

Four times a year, we work with the University of Michigan on the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI) E-Gov Satisfaction Index, a rating of more than 90 federal government websites in terms of how well they are satisfying citizens via the web channel. You can download the full report with scores for individual government websites here or read news coverage of it in Gov Exec, ComputerWorld, or Destination CRM.

For this quarter’s report, my colleague Errol Hau and I actually surveyed the top performing sites (sites that scored over 80 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale, generally considered to be the threshold for excellence) to see what these sites had in common. Why were they able to do so well? Our informal survey shows that sites that achieve top-performer status of 80 or above have several things in common:

• Total commitment to meeting the public’s diverse needs: Many government sites serve diverse publics, which can be challenging. Sites with high citizen satisfaction have learned how to use customer satisfaction analytics to first identify who is visiting their site then customize the online content to serve the needs of their multiple stakeholders. The high scores for content obtained by top-performing sites are proof of their success in this area.

• Recognition by management of the web’s strategic value: Many top-performing sites report having top-down support by management, with recognition by the agency or department director of the strategic value of the online channel. While many high-scoring sites face the familiar challenges of limited budget, staff and time, the fact that they’re supported fully by management enables them to better meet citizens’ needs

• Use of “Voice of citizen” data as an improvement tool: Sites that do a great job from the perspective of their users view citizen satisfaction as more than just a metric. They use data gathered via the reliable and scientific methodology of the ACSI to make both small and large-scale improvements to their sites to keep ahead of citizens’ continually evolving needs. While still challenged by search and navigation like government sites as a whole, top-performing sites outperform the e-government average in these key satisfaction drivers.

• Focus on the mission of citizen service: Sites that excel at meeting the needs of the public consider efficient and effective citizen service to be their mission. Because they put citizens’ needs at the core of all they do, these top-performing sites score well above average in all of the elements measured by the ACSI methodology. . . . .

No matter what a federal website’s score or ultimate mission, it is clear that these four factors are the cornerstone of building a truly superior e-gov website.

Did You Know?

Visitors to retail sites are 10% more likely to purchase from the retailer’s website if the site has customer generated product reviews. What would increasing purchase intent by 10% do to your bottom line?

A new study released by ForeSee Results finds that the availability of online customer reviews on a retail website boosts overall satisfaction with the website, loyalty, and likelihood to buy online.

In a closer look into research done with the top 100 grossing retail websites, we found that websites that offered customer reviews enjoyed better loyalty and conversion rates.

• Customer reviews significantly improve the online shopping experience: Satisfaction is 11% higher for people who said they had seen customer reviews on the site than for those who said that reviews weren’t on the site they visited.
• Customer reviews increase conversion and loyalty: Shoppers on sites with reviews are 10% more likely to purchase from the retailer’s website than those on sites without reviews. This group is 7% more likely to purchase from the retailer for their next purchase of similar merchandise, which is a strong loyalty metric.
• Customer reviews support acquisition: Customer reviews are a form of recommendation (whether they’re positive or negative) and recommendation is a powerful influence in online retailing. Online shoppers that remembered seeing customer reviews are 13% more likely to recommend the site than are shoppers who didn’t see reviews.

Are You Satisfied With E-Gov?

When was the last time you were in pursuit of information from government? When was the last time you had to fill out a government form? The internet has played a major role in making that process easier. It is hard to remember a time that e-gov wasn’t available to us to check on the status of a tax refund, or find out how to renew your passport, and the list goes on. But the last time you visited a .gov site, was it a good experience? Was it all it could be? Are you going to return to the site in the future? What could that .gov site done better?

Those are the burning questions on the minds of those responsible for the e-gov efforts. The most recent report on Federal Government Website Customer Satisfaction was recently released by The University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center and sponsored by ForeSee Results.

Citizen satisfaction with federal websites registered a slight improvement, according to the second quarter report from the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index. The e-commerce and transactions category showed the greatest increase of any other category, inching the E-Government Satisfaction Index forward 0.4% to 73.7 on a 100-point scale and reversing last quarter’s drop.

Although aggregate satisfaction with federal websites improved incrementally, it still lags the private sector, which continues to set the bar for online satisfaction. E-government scored 8.5% and 3.8% behind private sector e-commerce (80) and e-business industries (76.5), respectively.

Private sector e-commerce is one of the strongest performing sectors measured by the ACSI and still holds the edge over e-government transactional and e-commerce sites. But as more federal websites allow citizens to do business online with government, satisfaction is improving. On aggregate, the customer satisfaction score for sites that offer transactional or e-commerce capabilities rose 3.5% from last quarter to 76.8.

Three of the strongest performing e-commerce and transactional sites belong to the Social Security Administration (SSA). Internet Social Security Benefits Application site (88), Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs site (87), and Social Security Business Services Online (83), provide superior satisfaction by even private sector standards.

The Killer App for Financial Services

We are always searching for that killer app, and usually come up short. The killer app is the catalyst that brings us to critical mass. For the PC it was word processing and spreadsheets. For the internet it was email.

Most industries look and look and don’t find anything close. Well in financial services there is as close to a killer app opportunity as I have seen in a while. Online Bill Payment. Yes, Online Bill Payment.

In a recent study that we did in partnership with Forbes.com, we saw some very interesting insights for online banking. You can get the full report at:
http://www.foreseeresults.com/Form_OnlineBanking_2007.html

Here are some of the highlights:

• Satisfaction with online banking maintained a slight edge over satisfaction with the overall banking experience.
• Providing an online experience that meets the needs of the customers (satisfaction) results in significantly higher likelihood for those customers to purchase more services from the bank and recommend the bank to others.
• Security is a concern for those not using online banking, but is of little concern to those that are using online banking.

So, why does online bill payment come close to being that killer app?

• Customers using online bill payment are significantly more satisfied than those online banking customers that do not pay their bills online with their bank. They are also significantly more likely to buy additional services (31%).
• And the more bills they pay online, the more satisfied they are and the more likely they will purchase additional services and recommend the bank to others.

So what are banks supposed to do?

Maybe it is time to dust off those online bill payment marketing programs. Also, focus on making the online bill payment an easy and efficient one. And make sure that both your online banking and online bill payment is meeting the needs of your customers. Online bill payment is a great tool to help your bottom line — if done right!

  Comments

1.    
         Ron Shevlin      
          
         April 30th, 2007      |       1:56 pm      
      

   I’m really not following your logic here. “Killer app”, as you described it at the beginning, referred to the app that drove major adoption of a platform. WP and spreadsheets drove major adoption of PCs, and email drove major adoption of the Internet.

   So what is online bill payment driving major adoption of? online banking? I know a million people who will disagree with you, if that’s your contention.

   It seems to me you’re not talking about “adoption” as much as highlighting the connection between satisfaction and use of online bill payment. And as any good statistician knows (hell, even us bad ones know it), correlation does not mean causality.

   It’s just as possible that the most satisfied customers decide to go ahead and go thru the pain of setting up online bill payment with their preferred bank as it is that paying bills online CAUSES a customer to be satisfied.

        
2.    
         Larry Freed      
          
         May 1st, 2007      |       4:29 am      
      

   The use of online bill payment will result in increased satisfaction by the online banking customers. The more bills the pay the more they are satisfied. Higher satisfaction results in better behavior, such as likelihood to buy additional products.

   The beauty of the American Customer Satisfaction Index is not only do we get a score upon which to measure, we also get what we call an impact. The impact tells us the causation between the drivers of satisfaction, satisfaction and future behavior of our users.

   The argument of causation vs. correlation is a good one, and one that most measurement methodologies don’t address. Fortunately for us, the American Customer Satisfaction Index technology answers that question for us.
   -Larry

What Worked This Holiday Season?

Many online retailers had great success this holiday season. Early results point to a 25% growth year over year for online retail. In an industry (retail) where we see low to mid single digit growth, we continue to see superb growth in the online retail space.

It begs a couple of questions.

Can it continue ?

Yes! No doubt about it. We continually see that consumers are more satisfied with online retail experience then with traditional brick and mortar experience. Consumers will go where they are satisfied…and more and more, that is the internet. And they are going there for a few different reasons that we like to call the 3 Cs.

• Convenience: the anytime, anywhere value of the web. From the comfort of your own home, while you sit in your pajamas, watching a game on TV, you can go shopping. No crowds and no parking hassles. Sign me up!
• Consistency: we always get the same answer online. How many times do we get different answers from sales associates or from call centers. Consistency leads to higher quality. Have you ever called a call center, not gotten the answer you want, hang up, call again, and get a different answer? I have. No such thing on the web.
• Clear view: or transparency, the ability to know what products are available, the detail specs of those products and the price. As transparency happens, the consumer is now in charge. The web provides us a level of transparency that we cannot get elsewhere.

What drove the success this past holiday season ?

• Free shipping with no restrictions had a significant positive impact on consumers satisfaction and their likelihood to purchase. When restrictions exist in those free shipping offers we see no positive impact on satisfaction or purchase. Those free shipping with restrictions offers might have a positive impact on average order size, but it is having no positive impact on improving satisfaction, improving retention and improving loyalty. 63% of online holiday shoppers surveyed in the ForeSee Results Holiday top 40 online retail satisfaction index recall seeing free shipping offers.
• Customer product reviews had a significant impact on improving customer satisfaction, customer retention and customer loyalty. Customer product reviews was a powerful influencer of the purchase decisions for consumers that were first time buyers from the retailer.
• Promotional emails were a very successful strategy for the top 40 online retailers. More visitors to the top 40 websites listed promotional emails rather than search engines and shopping comparison engines as the primary reason they visited the retailer’s site. The email driven consumers are more likely to purchase and more likely to be loyal than the search engine driven consumers.

What are the take aways:

1. Offer free shipping, with no restrictions
2. Offer customer reviews
3. Continue to use promotional emails to drive traffic and sales

Check out out our research on the subject here.

  Comments

1.    
         Analytical Engine » How can a Retailer Exploit Loyalty Program Data      
          
         March 20th, 2007      |       1:22 pm      
      

   […] Ron (commenting on Larry’s post) identifies loyalty program as a key reason for the holiday season success of online channel of retailers. Apart from driving sales, loyalty programs generate valuable data which can be analyzed to determine tactical strategies like cross-promotional programs, estimating discounts on bundles etc. Here is a four step actionable process to exploit the loyalty card data, and use it to broadly target customers with effective offers, even those who are not members of the loyalty program. […]

        
2.    
         Anshuman Acharya      
          
         March 20th, 2007      |       4:47 pm      
      

   Interesting…

   A question -

   The free shippign with o restrictions- was this idea tested on a smaller sample or smaller range of products before being launched.

   ‘Coz, it might have worked here but might have backfired in the case that the cost of shipping is more tahn the margin on the items sold.

   Was it?

        
3.    
         Larry Freed      
          
         March 22nd, 2007      |       1:03 am      
      

   The free shipping analysis was done across the top 40 online retailers based on their various offers of free shipping that existed during the holiday season.

   Keep in mind, that the cost of carrying and selling a product in a brick and mortar environment is significantly greater then in an online environment. And in most cases will far exceed the cost of shipping.

   The one question about the free shipping research, was free shipping with restrictions did not increase satisfaction or loyalty, but did it increase average order size. This study did not focus on that aspect.

   -Larry

        
4.    
         Anshuman      
          
         March 28th, 2007      |       1:00 pm      
      

   Ok.

   Regarding “did it increase average order size”, I guess you’ll need some loyalty data on the customer to realize how his current basket compares to his regular purchase.

   Just one caveat, given the holiday-effect, we would have to “deseasonalize” the data for a meaningful comparison.

   I work on testing promotions and products for CPG industry.

   This sounds like a good idea to test. But alas, it is for my clients to see the idea here .

The BCS Championship

Although I am a big College Football fan, I am not going to comment on Ohio State vs. Florida. Although it is time for a playoff system!

The real BCS is “Best in Customer Satisfaction”.

ForeSee Results recently published our Top 40, that is the “Holiday 2006 Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index”.

Why is Satisfaction important?

First what is Satisfaction? The simple definition is a combination of what you get and what you expect. Expectations play a major role in determining how satisfied we are with an experience. If we to a fast food restaurant our expectations our different than when we go to a 5 star restaurant. The meal may be better at the 5 star restaurants, but we may have been more satisfied with the fast food restaurant; because it did a better job of meeting and exceeding our expectations. Now that is a simple definition, but satisfaction is also a very complex structure. It is all things about the experience including the merchandise, the price, the ease of purchasing and more.

So why do we care? Isn’t it just about if they purchased? The answer to that is no! In very simple terms, where consumers have freedom of choice, they are going to do business where their needs are being met and their expectations are being met or exceeded. In other words, consumers are going to do business where they are satisfied. When we think of a multi-channel retailer, sales alone do not tell the whole story of how successful our website is. How many times do you research a product online and purchase it offline? I know I do it quite often. Also think about the typical sales cycle. I recently purchased a new HDTV. I researched online and offline before making the purchase. And I finally purchased it about 30 days after I started the process. But the experience I had on those websites at the beginning of my purchase evaluation greatly influenced where I purchased from. So a great experience today (where I am satisfied – my needs met and my expectations exceeded) can lead to a purchase in the future.

The reality is that the best performance metric, the best measurement of the success of the website in contributing to the future value of our organization is the level of satisfaction.

Who did we measure?

We chose the top 40 online retailers in online revenue as determined by Internet Retailers Top 500 guide from last spring. We collected data using FGI Research’s SmartPanel. We focused on consumers visiting the websites. And we analyzed the data using the proven methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

Who came out on top?

Netflix was number one for the second year in a row with a score of 86 (on a scale of 0 to 100), up 2.4% from last year. Amazon came in second with an impressive score of 84. They were followed closely by LLBean and QVC. The top traditional brick and mortar, multi-channel retailer was OldNavy with a score of 79, up 6.8% from last year. They also were near the top in terms of year over year improvement. The top 10 sites follow. Find the complete list here.

Retailer	Holiday 2006	Holiday 2005	Year-Over-Year Change
Netfix.com	86	84	2.4%
Amazon.com	84	82	2.4%
LLBean.com	80	80	0.0%
QVC.com	80	80	0.0%
Apple.com	79	76	3.9%
OldNavy.com	79	74	6.8%
Quixtar.com	79	76	3.9%
HPShopping.com	78	74	5.4%
Newegg.com	78	79	-1.3%
Barnes&Noble.com	77	77	0.0%
Dell.com	77	74	4.1%
Williams-Sonoma.com	77	77	0.0%

Who were the big gainers?

Somewhat surprising was the biggest year over year improvements were by traditional brick and mortar multi-channel retailers, Sears, JCPenney and OldNavy. Considering the fact that the top of the list is led by online only retailers, it is a great sign for consumers that the traditional brick and mortar retailers are making great strides forward in terms of providing a more satisfying online experience. The mutli-channel retailers have the advantage of offering more channel choice to consumers. It appears that many are ready to take advantage of that and compete strongly with their online only retailers.

Retailer	Holiday 2006	Holiday 2005	Year-Over-Year Change
Sears.com	73	68	7.4%
JCPenney.com	76	71	7.0%
OldNavy.com	79	74	6.8%
SonyStyle.com	73	69	5.8%
Target.com	74	70	5.7%
HPShopping.com	78	74	5.4%

What else did we see in the research?

More to come in upcoming posts, but here are a couple of the highlights.

• User Reviews played a major role in influencing purchases.
• Free shipping with restrictions has little impact on influencing satisfaction      and customer loyalty
• 25% of the visitors reported that promotional emails were the primary reason for visiting the site. This is up from 20% a year ago. And nearly double the amount of people driven to the sites by search engines and shopping comparison sites.

Take Away Comment:Free your mind from only measuring success of your website by the dollars