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Price Satisfaction is Most Important Aspect of Overall Customer Experience for Online Air Travel Sites - Latest Research from Keynote Systems Reveals

Dépèche transmise le 22 mars 2011 par Business Wire

Price Satisfaction is Most Important Aspect of Overall Customer Experience for Online Air Travel Sites - Latest Research from Keynote Systems Reveals

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote Systems (NASDAQ:KEYN), today announced the results of the Keynote Competitive Research Industry Study examining U.S. Air Travel Web sites. In the 2011 U.S. Air Travel study Southwest Airlines took first place for Best Overall Customer Experience and Orbitz came in first for Best Overall Technical Quality for their Web sites. The entire study is available for immediate purchase. To request more information please visit:

“As for our rankings, Southwest Airlines was the clear winner for Overall Customer Experience, with our panelists using descriptors like ‘friendly,’ ‘fun,’ and a ‘good value,’ to describe their experience on Southwest.com.”

http://bit.ly/usairsites

Winners of Keynote Competitive Research studies are invited to participate in the company’s Online Excellence Program which recognizes the "best of the best" Web sites as ranked in the studies. The rankings are based on responses from real users, who were observed as they accomplished tasks on each of the sites studied, as well as real data collected through Keynote Web site monitoring to assess the technical quality of the sites. For each study, Keynote recognizes the companies with the overall top ranking, as well as those exhibiting excellence in specific categories.

For the ‘Customer Experience’ portion of the study, Keynote observed and conducted online interviews with 2,000 prospective air travel customers as they interacted with the Web sites of a total of 10 leading air travel Web sites (200 people per site): American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Expedia, JetBlue, Orbitz, Southwest Airlines, Travelocity, United Airlines and US Airways.

For the ‘Technical Quality’ portion of the study, Keynote performed 6,000 total measurements for each site, for a total of 60,000 total measurements, from 12 locations in the U.S.

Keynote Competitive Research produces leading industry research using the company’s commercially available Web performance monitoring and real user experience testing products. Keynote regularly evaluates the current state of online customer experience, technical quality (responsiveness/reliability) and implementation of best practices on leading Web sites across a wide variety of vertical markets including financial services, automotive, media/entertainment, retail, travel and technology.

More Information about the Customer Experience Rankings for Air Travel Web Sites

For the ‘Customer Experience’ component of the study, Keynote sent 200 U.S. resident Internet users to each of the 10 air travel Web sites. The online panelists were then asked to evaluate the Web site’s home page, search for a flight, begin the booking process and utilize the site’s customer support features. The study revealed that when tested by actual users Southwest offers the strongest Overall Customer Experience, sweeping all categories, while Orbitz ranked 2^nd for Overall Customer Experience, Brand Impact and Customer Satisfaction. Other key findings include:

• Southwest and Travelocity are the top sites for driving conversion;
• Orbitz is thought of as “helpful” and “reliable;” more than any other site in the study;
• Travelocity ranks in the top tier of sites for four out of seven drivers: price satisfaction, design & organization, flight availability, and ease of finding flight, and;
• Southwest ranks in the top tier of sites for all seven top drivers and performs significantly better than all others for ease of booking.

Keynote’s analysis of user sessions further revealed that Price Satisfaction is now the most important aspect of the overall customer experience, predicting both brand perception and conversion.

“Based on our analysts’ observations and interviews with our panel of actual users, our study of US Air Travel Web sites revealed that competitive pricing or at least the perception of value is the top determining factor of the overall customer experience, affecting brand perception, and most importantly, conversion outcomes,” said Christopher Musto, general manager of the Keynote Competitive Research group at Keynote. “As for our rankings, Southwest Airlines was the clear winner for Overall Customer Experience, with our panelists using descriptors like ‘friendly,’ ‘fun,’ and a ‘good value,’ to describe their experience on Southwest.com.”

More Information about the Technical Quality Rankings in the U.S. Air Travel Web Site Study

In addition to evaluating customer experience with its panel of actual users, the Keynote study also examined two broad aspects of technical quality: responsiveness and reliability. Responsiveness comprises: high speed response, DSL (midband) response, response time consistency, geographic uniformity and load handling, while reliability is comprised of availability and outages.

For the ‘Technical Quality’ portion of the study, using measurement computers located in 12 cities across the U.S., Keynote measured a typical transaction of searching for and reserving a flight online. Each measured transaction began at the site’s Home Page, searched for flights from LAX to JFK, selected outbound and inbound flights and ended at the reservation page that prompts the user to enter his/her personal information. Based on the thousands of transactions monitored over the course of the study, Orbitz ranked first in Overall Technical Quality. In the two components of ‘Technical Quality,’ Continental set the standard for responsiveness (or speed), while Orbitz led the group in reliability and was second in responsiveness.

In order to collect the Technical Quality data Keynote used its Transaction Perspective® product, the leading real browser based service for measuring and monitoring Web site performance from the end user perspective. With Keynote Transaction Perspective the company examines Web site performance from multiple geographic locations by simulating users clicking through transactions on a Web site. Keynote collected more than 6,000 data points that detailed each of the US Air Travel Web sites’ technical performance in terms of page responsiveness and reliability.

The study is available for purchase from Keynote and comes with extensive analysis of brand impact, acquisition impact, reliability and responsiveness and the factors that drive sites’ performance in these areas. Clients will receive an executive presentation, extensive back-up charts and illustrations, and online access to all clickstreams, verbatims, question responses and panel facts for all panelists at all sites for all tasks and can download and use this data in their own research. To inquire about a copy, please visit us online: http://bit.ly/usairsites

Follow Keynote on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/KeynoteSystems and www.twitter.com/Keynote_Mobile

About Keynote

Keynote Systems (NASDAQ:KEYN) is the global leader in Internet and mobile cloud monitoring. We provide companies with solutions for continuously improving the online experience. Founded in 1995, Keynote delivers testing, monitoring and measurement products and services for any enterprise including online portals, e-commerce sites, B2B sites, mobile operators and mobile infrastructure providers. Keynote products and services help companies improve customer experience in four areas: Web performance, mobile quality, streaming and real user experience testing.

Known as The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote has a market-leading on-demand infrastructure of over 3,000 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 275 locations around the world. Keynote's 2,800 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies including American Express, AT&T, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Google, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

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 1-800-KEYNOTE.

Keynote®, DataPulse®, CustomerScope®, Keynote CE Rankings®, Keynote Customer Experience Rankings®, Perspective®, Keynote Red Alert®, Keynote Traffic Perspective®, Keynote WebEffective®, The Internet Performance Authority®, MyKeynote® , SIGOS®, SITE®, Keynote™, The Mobile & Internet Performance Authority™, Screen Sensing Technology and Keynote FlexUse™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2011 Keynote Systems, Inc.