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March
03,
2005
PRESS RELEASE
Online Travel Agencies Beating Airline Web Sites At
Their Own Game, Says Keynote Study
- Expedia, Orbitz Fly Above Airline Competitors
Online
- Low-Cost Carriers Southwest and JetBlue Extend
Aggressive Competition to the Web
- Keynote Study Examines
Consumer Experience at Leading Airline Web Sites
SAN MATEO, Calif., — March 3, 2005 — Online
travel agencies are outperforming airline Web sites
in terms of customer experience and that is impacting
their booking success according to a new study by Keynote
Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”), The Internet Performance
Authority®. Keynote provides the industry’s
most comprehensive competitive benchmarking of leading
travel and airline Web sites through its syndicated
research reports.
The Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings for
the Airline Industry are based on research with 2,000
customers as they evaluated and interacted with 16
leading travel and airline Web sites. In addition to
traditional opinion data, Keynote’s proprietary
research technology collects detailed qualitative and
behavioral data as customers perform tasks at each
site.
The AirTran, Alaska Air, America West, American Airlines,
CheapTickets, Continental, Delta, Expedia, Frontier,
JetBlue, Northwest, Orbitz, Southwest, Travelocity,
United, and US Airways Web sites were evaluated as
part of this competitive benchmarking study.
Online Travel Agencies Fly Above Airline Sites
The Keynote study revealed a significant gap between
the online travel agencies and individual airline
Web sites, and showed that the advantage is rooted
in a strong online customer experience. The study
also drew a direct correlation between customer experience
performance and conversion of site visitors into
customers.
“Greater selection is a major inherent advantage
for online travel agencies,” said Dr. Bonny Brown,
Director of Research and Public Services for Keynote. “But
online agencies are also creating a better overall
online experience for customers and this is a significant
contributor to the success of these sites over airline
sites. The airlines are just not fully capitalizing
on their loyalty programs and direct ties to the customer.”
The top three agency sites tested scored significantly
better than any airline site, aside from Southwest,
in customer satisfaction and customer conversion. Expedia,
Orbitz and Travelocity ranked as the best sites in
the Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings, an overall
measure of online customer experience based on evaluation
of more than 250 metrics.
Keynote Customer
Experience Rankings
|
1
|
Expedia |
2
|
Orbitz |
3
|
Travelocity |
The same sites also topped the Keynote Conversion
Impact Index, which gauges the overall likelihood of
a visitor to book on a site or return to the site in
the future.
Keynote Conversion
Impact Index Rankings
|
1
|
Expedia |
2
|
Travelocity |
3
|
Orbitz |
Low-Cost Carriers Fly Past Competitors
Low-cost carriers Southwest and JetBlue were rated
best among other airline sites in terms of customer
experience and conversion, easily topping the sites
of market-leading airlines. In fact, Southwest was
the only airline site to drive bookings as effectively
as the online agency sites. Southwest performed well
because of its industry-leading price satisfaction
and because it possessed the industry’s best
online booking process.
“Airlines such as Southwest and JetBlue have
demonstrated that airlines can successfully compete
against online travel agencies,” said Dr. Brown. “Those
sites clearly take great strides to produce a positive
online experience and it appears to be paying off for
them.”
Web Impact on Airline Industry
The Keynote report also documented the growing importance
of the Web in the airline industry, with 70% of consumers
with online access saying they book air travel online
compared to just 25% who call an airline customer
service line. In selecting a site to book with, price
is still the most important consideration with 81%
of consumers self-reporting this as a factor in their
decisions, followed by the ease-of-use of the Web
site, which 50% of consumers reported as an important
factor. The ease of booking and the ability to compare
prices are the leading factors influencing consumer
perceptions about ease-of-use.
Best of the Web
As part of its evaluation, Keynote also determined
the specific areas most important to a site’s
success and competitively ranked the sites in these
categories. As a result, researchers were able to
determine what consumers viewed as the best of the
Web in the airline industry:
Best
of the Web – Airline Industry
|
Price Satisfaction
|
Orbitz/Southwest |
Design & Organization
|
Orbitz/United |
Ease of Booking
|
Southwest |
Flight Availability
|
Orbitz |
Flight Search
|
Expedia |
Customer Support
|
CheapTickets |
Southwest was lauded for its simple booking process
which does not force registration and displays pricing
information up-front. Orbitz received high marks for
its pricing and its flight matrix which enables users
to easily view flight options, improving the perception
of flight availability. Expedia was the industry-leader
in terms of providing tools that simplify the flight
research process and ease of use.
The entire study, Keynote Customer Experience (CE)
Rankings for the Airline Industry, is a large-scale
competitive benchmarking study examining overall industry
trends and providing analysis of specific sites. The
full report includes hundreds of additional data points,
a detailed analysis of the findings, and recommendations
for improving site performance. For further information
about the full report, visit http://www.keynote.com/syndicated.html.
Keynote Customer Experience Research
Keynote is the leading provider of customer experience
research services, offering both syndicated and custom
research examining consumer attitudes and behavior
on the Web. Keynote’s research provides critical
business insight into online customer experiences,
industry trends and competitive Web strategies for
a variety of vertical industries. In addition to
traditional opinion data, Keynote’s proprietary
research technology and access to a panel of 160,000+
consumers allows for the collection of detailed qualitative
and behavioral data that inform its reports.
Keynote’s syndicated research includes two distinct
types of reports: the Keynote Customer Experience (CE)
Rankings, which provide competitive benchmarking and
rankings of the leading Web sites in a specific industry;
and Open Web Research (OWR), which takes a broader
look at the customer’s experience across the
entire Web when performing specific tasks, such as
booking business travel.
Keynote CE (CE) Rankings are available for a number
of industries including the retail, banking and credit
card industries, as well as several travel verticals,
including the lodging, cruise and rental car industries.
The Keynote CE Rankings are the successor to the Vividence
CE Rankings following Keynote’s acquisition of
Vividence in September 2004.
To learn more about Keynote’s syndicated research
offerings and for a list of the various vertical industry
reports that are available, visit: http://www.keynote.com/solutions/cem_syndicated_research.html
About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”),
The Internet Performance Authority®, is the worldwide
leader in e-business performance management services.
Over 2,100 corporate IT departments and 16,000 individual
subscribers rely on Keynote’s growing range of
measurement and monitoring, service level and customer
experience management services to improve e-business
performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction
and increasing profitability.
Keynote is viewed as The Internet Performance Authority
due to the company’s global infrastructure of
over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities
worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over
40 million Internet performance measurements, frequent
media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data
and analysis, the company’s market-leading Web
performance indices for vertical markets and leading
customer research that provides critical business insight
into online customer experiences, industry trends and
competitive Web strategies.
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 and Perspective are registered
trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc.
Other trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.
©
2005 Keynote Systems, Inc.
Editorial Contacts:
Della Lowe, Keynote, (650)
403-3233, dlowe@keynote.com
Dan Cahill, Roaring PR (for Keynote), (415) 552-3999,
dcahill@roaringcommunications.com
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