Does this sound familiar? You go online to search for a simple piece of information on a company's Web site -- a telephone number for a particular department, say, media
relations, or a street address for the home office -- and, after surfing high and low for what seems like an eternity and finding zip, you throw in the towel, er, zap the page and
go to another Web site.
Welcome to the nether regions of the Internet, where people get lost without finding what they want and, in the process, lose sight of your brand. Senior PR execs should
appreciate this more than most consumers do and should craft their Web sites accordingly, lest their sites fall victim to online pet peeves, which are numerous, according to a
recent study of 1,000 consumers nationwide.
The study, done for Web-hosting company Hostway Inc. (Chicago) by market-inform-ation group Taylor Nelson Sofres PLC (TNS), reports that more than 70% of
consumers surveyed said they're unlikely to purchase from, or even return to, a Web site after encountering a pet peeve. And because only 25% of consumers said they'd complain to
the companies about their pet peeves, the use of features that annoy consumers may be having a negative impact that is difficult to trace or measure.
"The study confirms a lot of our suspicions about the difficulties people have with Web sites," says John Lee, VP of marketing at Hostway. "If you're putting up information
that people generally find annoying, there had better be a really good reason."
Lee doesn't advocate that companies stop having consumers register to gain access to certain types of information. Quite the contrary, he says log-ins can be a valuable tool in
learning more about the people who go to your Web site; it's just a matter of making it worth their while. "When it comes to exchanging personal information online, people want a
fair deal," he adds.
A lot of the criticism leveled at PR pros regarding Web content centers on the perception that there is too much puffery posted on corporate sites. The onus is on
communications execs to convince their managers that harder, more useful information has to be made available -- and fast.
Perhaps it was kismet that this press release crossed our path as we were putting this piece together: An announcement from Atlanta-based BellSouth about all the new
bells (sorry) and whistles on http://www.bellsouth.com designed to improve customers' access to orders, service and account information. The company says a new search-
engine application enables customers to use one or more words (or a specific question) to find the exact information they seek. The telecommunications giant also added these
features to its Web site:
- Improved access to bill history.
- Improved access to payment history.
- Detailed order status.
- Improved product instructions.
Contact: John Lee, [email protected]
Internet Pet Peeves
- 93% of consumers say pop-up ads are "annoying" or "extremely annoying."
- 89% are annoyed at the need to install extra software.
- 86% said dead links are annoying or extremely annoying.
- 84% said confusing navigation is annoying or extremely annoying.
- 83% express annoyance with registration log-on pages that block access to online content.
- 83% said slow-loading pages are annoying or extremely annoying.
- 80% said ineffective site-search tools are annoying or extremely annoying.
Comparatively, fewer consumers ranked aesthetic characteristics of Web sites as being annoying:
- 59% of consumers think moving text is annoying or extremely annoying.
- 55% "feel strongly" that poor appearance in regard to color, fonts and format are annoying or extremely annoying.
Consumers will strike back after encountering their top online pet peeves:
- 74% are "extremely likely" or "somewhat likely" to unsubscribe from the company's promotions or messages.
- 71% are extremely likely or somewhat likely to view the company in a negative way.
- 55% are extremely likely or somewhat likely to complain about the Web site to friends/associates.
Source: Hostway and TNS, July 2005