Europe Press Room: 2009

The Co-operative Bank Ranked Number One for Online Customer Experience in New Keynote Competitive Research Study

• Comprehensive study of UK banking Web sites conducted by Keynote Competitive Research finds The Co-operative Bank has the best online experience for consumers researching and applying for bank accounts
• Keynote’s WebEffective™ on-demand software for in-depth user experience research captured detailed attitudinal and behavioural metrics from more than 2,500 consumers across the Web sites of ten of the UK’s leading banks
• Co-operative Bank and RBS also performed well in terms of customer satisfaction, brand impact, and customer acquisition

LONDON, UK – January 14, 2009 — Keynote Systems UK today announced that the Co-operative Bank Web site provided the best online experience for consumers researching and applying for bank accounts, according to a comprehensive study of UK banking sites by Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote, the global leader in on-demand mobile and Internet test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience. Other banking sites included in the study were: Abbey, Bank of Scotland, Barclays, HSBC, Halifax, Lloyds TSB, NatWest, Nationwide and RBS.

The 2008 Keynote Customer Experience Rankings for UK Banking Prospects examined the online experience of more than 2,500 consumers as they interacted with leading banks’ public Web sites. The study details how each bank’s Web site performed versus competitors across key business objectives including customer satisfaction, brand impact, and customer acquisition. Using Keynote’s WebEffective™, an on-demand software platform for conducting in-depth user experience studies which integrates the best aspects of usability, behaviour and attitudinal research, Keynote captured separate metrics from 250 consumers visiting each site included in the study. The panellists profiled were all UK-based adults (18+) who were not currently an online banking customer of the site they were evaluating.

Overall customer experience

The Co-operative Bank achieved pole position with strong ratings across the three Impact indices that comprise the Overall rankings — Customer Satisfaction, Acquisition Impact and Brand Impact. RBS came in a close second overall, with Nationwide and Halifax taking third and fourth position respectively. The Overall Keynote Customer Experience Ranking is based on an aggregate score of site performance across all 250 customer experience indices and metrics measured in the study. The Overall Ranking shows which sites are most successful in terms of satisfying customers, driving acquisition and supporting the company’s brand.

RBS was overall runner-up, topping the rankings in Customer Satisfaction, as well as scoring well for Brand Impact and Acquisition Impact. Nationwide achieved third place in the Overall Rankings topping the table for Acquisition Impact.

Breaking the Overall rankings down into its components – Customer Satisfaction, Acquisition Impact and Brand Impact – reveals how banks’ Web sites are either helping or hindering their efforts to reach out to prospects.

Customer Satisfaction

The Customer Satisfaction index aggregates nearly 100 metrics to determine consumer satisfaction with a site in terms of ‘site organisation’, ‘in-context help’, ‘options to resolve’, ‘frustration’ and ‘look and feel’.

With research showing that brand impact and purchasing decisions are significantly influenced by a customer’s online experience, measuring e-business performance from the end-user perspective is becoming increasingly important. Although RBS came top in this category, a number of bank sites demonstrated similar Customer Satisfaction scores and the industry as a whole is providing a more satisfying online experience for prospective customers than last year.

Acquisition Impact

The Acquisition Impact index looks at a site’s ability to encourage prospects to apply for an account or recommend the bank to a friend. Nationwide was placed first in this section with the Co-operative Bank and RBS very close behind. Through its WebEffective platform, Keynote examined exactly how panellists seek out information and products on the Web site and how their use of the site impacts their readiness to buy.

Brand Impact – does your site measure up?

A key index measured in the study was ‘Brand impact’. Participants, who were enlisted to evaluate a site other than that of their own bank, were asked for their impressions of the bank immediately before and immediately after their online visit. The study uncovered unique insights into how a bank’s Web site can impact consumer brand perceptions of the bank as a whole.

In addition to the customer experience research conducted as part of this study, Keynote Systems also benchmarked the banking Web sites in two major categories; Reliability, which measures a site’s ability to service its customers without errors or outages; and Responsiveness, which measures a site’s ability to provide highly responsive and consistent page downloads. The company’s service levels studies employ Keynote Transaction Perspective™ automated testing agents to closely-mimic the actions of a consumer using the Internet Explorer browser to perform scripted tasks.

Abbey was the most reliable Web site just beating HSBC and The Co-operative bank to top position. However, a number of sites reported less than stellar availability with daily errors of up to four percent. Keynote experts note that this is particularly worrying as error rates at this frequency will certainly frustrate users trying to apply for an online account.

RBS’s Web site had the best responsiveness times, and with Halifax and Lloyds TSB, it made up the top three quickest sites in the study. The study revealed that on the whole the banking sites loaded most pages quickly, although there were some notable exceptions with certain sites taking two to three times the industry average to load the Home Page.

“Conducting this survey for a second year not only allows us to achieve real insight into customers’ thoughts and opinions but also to see how the banks have either improved, maintained or unwittingly reduced the impact of their Web sites. This research helps to clearly identify the areas that make a website successful, drilling right down to details such as site design and organisation and the support provided, as well as highlighting how and why a user’s opinion may change. This ‘why’ element is particularly important as this is often something that remains unknown to many companies,” said Malcolm Otter, director of consulting for Keynote Systems EMEA. “Not only can banks determine how reliable and responsive their sites are, but by better understanding their customers, they no longer need to adopt a trial and error approach when it comes to the design, organisation and the dynamics of their websites. This study was particularly interesting as some banks successfully maintained their position from last year in specific areas, whereas others have improved significantly and some have not performed as well as previously. The ability to benchmark your performance year on year can help resolve reoccurring problems.”

Keynote Systems conducts its Customer Experience ranking studies annually to examine online customer experience and Web site service levels (responsiveness and reliability from the end user perspective). This provides subscribing companies with ‘hard measures’ of success on their site investments, together with a robust, ongoing competitive benchmark of their position relative to their close competitors.

Over the past year, Keynote has used its WebEffective platform to examine more than 50,000 online consumers across a dozen vertical industries as they interacted with 150 leading Web sites. The 2008 Keynote Customer Experience Rankings for UK Banking Prospects is available for purchase from Keynote. For more information or details on purchasing the complete study, please visit: http://www.keynote.com/keynote_competitive_research/industry_studies/financial_services.html

About Keynote

Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”) is the global leader in on-demand test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience. For over a decade, Keynote has been providing measurement data and testing capabilities that allow companies to understand and improve their customers’ online and mobile experience. Keynote has four test and measurement businesses: Web performance, mobile quality, streaming & VoIP, and customer experience/UX.

Known as The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote has a market-leading infrastructure of 2,600 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 240 locations around the world. Keynote’s 2,800 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies including American Express, Dell, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone and YouTube.

Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at (650) 403-2400.

Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority, Perspective and WebEffective are registered trademarks and The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority and True Experience are trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2008 Keynote Systems, Inc.

Editorial Contacts:

Corinna Krueger, Keynote Systems, 001 650 403 3412, corinna.krueger@keynote.com

Ryan Whelan and Kathryn Mills-Webb, Johnson King, +44 (0) 20 7401 7968, keynoteteam@johnsonking.co.uk