Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), today announced the latest winners of the Keynote Online Excellence Recognition Program that recognizes the ‘best of the best’ Web sites as ranked in Keynote Competitive Research studies. The three companies being recognized today are ranked based on responses from real online users that participated in the studies.
Keynote hereby recognizes:
- Citibank.com for displaying the best online Customer Experience in the ‘Credit Card Prospects’ category;
- Amazon.com for displaying the best online Customer Experience in the ‘Retail: Books, Music and Video Games’ category; and
- Southwest.com for displaying the best online Customer Experience in the ‘Travel: Airlines’ category.
Keynote Competitive Research produces leading industry research using the company’s commercially available Web performance test and measurement products. Keynote regularly evaluates the current state of online user experience, technical quality (responsiveness & reliability) and implementation of best practices on leading Web sites across a wide variety of industries including financial services, automotive, media/entertainment portals, retail, travel and technology.
Anshu Agarwal, Keynote’s vice president of marketing said, "The Keynote Online Excellence Recognition Program is designed to highlight the leading Web sites in a particular industry as experienced by the end user, it is the voice of the customer. While Amazon, Citibank and Southwest are certainly all well-known brands, we often forget the tremendous amount of effort and dedication required to build and run a highly optimized Web site 24 x 7 that also delivers a wonderful end user experience. So we are very pleased to recognize Amazon, Citibank and Southwest as Keynote’s latest ‘best in class’ Web sites."
Customer Experience’ Award Category
Keynote studies of ‘Customer Experience’ examine the online experience of prospects or customers of a Web site as they interact with each of the leading sites included in a particular vertical industry study. The customer experience component of the study details how each site performs versus competitors across key business objectives, including online adoption and customer acquisition. Each of the studiescaptures more than 250+ metrics for each site–and provides competitive rankings in dozens of categories.
Keynote user experience studies employ Keynote’s commercially available WebEffective(TM) product, an on-demand software platform for conducting in-depth user experience research which integrates the best aspects of usability, behavior and attitudinal research. Keynote’s technology and methodology offers a unique view into both customer attitudes and behavior by questioning customers and examining their online behavior in real-time as they interact with each site from their own home or office environment.
Performance’ Award Category
Keynote studies of ‘Performance’ examine the technical performance of the leading sites included within a particular vertical industry. The studies leverage Keynote Transaction Perspective(R), the leading subscription-based service for measuring and monitoring Web site performance. Transaction Perspective examines performance from multiple geographic locations and mimics the actions of consumers, collecting more than 6,500 data points for each site included in the ‘technical quality’ component of a study to detail the site’s online technical performance.
Keynote’s performance studies provide technical performance data of each site relative to their competitors including detailed insights into each site’s performance across seven key measures critical to the operational health of a Web site. Specifically, the studies provides performance data and competitive rankings in site reliability, including site availability and outages, and site responsiveness. Also included are performance data and competitive rankings in the areas of load handling, response time consistency, geographic consistency and responsiveness over both high-speed (DSL) and low-speed connections. Overall, the study captures data and ranks sites in more than 40 performance metrics.
Please visit us online to learn more about the Online Excellence Recognition Program and to register for a consultation with a Keynote representative about our methodology and ongoing industry studies: http://keynote.com/keynote_competitive_research/online_excellence/overview.
