Press release

9 October 2003 - UK CORPORATES RUNNING WEBSITES BLIND, WARNS SCIVISUM

81 per cent of UK companies relying on customer complaints to improve website services, SciVisum research shows

UK corporates are running their websites blind, with 81 per cent relying primarily on customer complaints to reveal problems with services and performance degradation. This is the key finding of the Web Effectiveness Report 2003 by web website testing specialist SciVisum, which examined the approach taken by UK corporations to website service management.

Overall, a third (34 per cent) of UK companies surveyed never monitor their website performance, with many of the remainder only initiating a performance review following customer or internal complaints. 48 per cent relied on internal colleagues to notify them on an ad hoc basis of any problems.

In the retail sector, where all companies surveyed deliver sophisticated e-commerce services for customers or suppliers online, a third (33 per cent) of companies never monitor their website performance beyond page availability testing. In the financial sector, where all companies surveyed offered web services, 50 per cent never monitor their performance. Although only 49 per cent of government organisations offered transactional services, government organisations were found to monitor performance most closely. 71 per cent of government sector organisations monitor their performance, with accessibility for disabled users as the main focus.

"UK corporates are running their websites blind, it is shocking that more than three quarters have to rely on customer complaints to improve their services," comments Deri Jones, CEO of SciVisum. "Once a customer has complained, in most cases it is too late to rescue the relationship. And it will already have impacted the business.

"The UK has the highest use of e-commerce in Europe over a billion transactions a month. It really surprises me that more is not being done to prevent service failures when the opportunity is growing and poor service is the biggest factor in customers abandoning a service. The real world experience is certainly the most accurate measure of performance and functionality -but problems should be identified by a company, rather than by its customers! The focus needs to switch to prevention, not cure."

The report highlights that high levels of senior management support for Internet strategies are not reflected in terms of financial investment, dedicated resource or staff training. 75 per cent of organisations claimed that senior management support was strong, with 49 per cent rating support as high.

However, only 23 per cent of organisations had budgets of more than £10,000 per year in total allocated to review website problems and improve performance. In-house staff knowledge on how to monitor and improve performance was also found to be very poor, with low training levels. Only 22 per cent of staff had received any training in this area, with only 9 per cent receiving formal training.

"Senior management support for their web offerings is all mouth and no trousers: such low-level backing hardly supports even a half-decent service," Jones continued. "Given the strategic importance of Internet services in the companies we interviewed, we had expected a greater focus on improving service. As online services become more sophisticated and transactional volumes increase, this will throw up some nasty surprises for those who continue to bury their heads in the sand."

Based on the findings, SciVisum made a number of broad recommendations to improve the performance of corporate and consumer Internet services.

Conduct an initial performance test prior to roll out of new services, in order to nip potential problems in the bud. Test thoroughly emulating all of your normal user-types (first time login, experienced user, power user). Also test all of the major functional blocks
Assess and develop a short list of core transactions, which should ideally be monitored on a 24x7 basis
Give your IT helpdesk real time tools to enable them to handle customer problems with live, factual information
Ensure that web testing is an explicit part of your web systems budget, representing at least 5-10% of the entire figure
Ensure you strike a balance between web and server logs and live testing. Web and server logs tell you which pages have been downloaded and how busy the server has been after the event but only live testing identifies which areas of the site are working and how well
If outsourcing your web systems, ensure you receive a monthly report as a minimum requirement

In summary, adopt a continuous improvement approach across all areas, putting preventative measures into place along the way. Ideally this should cover all areas of a corporate website including user functionality.

"Management should not underestimate the value of testing functionality from the user‘build & buy’s perspective. In summary, the best way to ensure web effectiveness is to adopt a virtuous cycle of improvement: measure and test - improve - test again," Jones concluded.

The report is based on a research study of more than 100 UK companies with a sizeable web presence, in the main FTSE 100 companies, top 100 law companies and local government organisations. The research analysed results across the financial, government, legal and retail sectors. See form below to request a copy of the full report.

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About SciVisum

SciVisum delivers engineered web systems monitoring services to help UK businesses measure and improve the performance and functionality of business critical Web based systems. The company‘build & buy’s in-house research and development, and an unique test methodology enable testing and monitoring of complex web based applications, taking test services beyond website performance to incorporate user functionality. This includes sophisticated web systems and complex functionality such as online order processing, shopping carts, banking applications, auction systems and utilities online billing.

SciVisum offers customers an unique ‘build & buy’ approach, tailoring semi-automated services to clients‘build & buy’ exact requirements. This provides the flexible benefits of consultancy but with clearly defined services, at off the shelf prices and with fast implementation. The company is backed by a senior management team with substantial Internet industry experience.

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