-BB&T ranks first in overall customer experience

-U.S. Bank ranks first for reliability; Wells Fargo ranks first for responsiveness (speed)

-Keynote’s research assesses the business and technical effectiveness of leading sites to determine top performers, best practices and opportunities

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SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul. 18, 2012-- Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote® (Nasdaq: KEYN), today announced the results of a new study examining the business and technical effectiveness of U.S. Retail Bank Marketing websites. In the 2012 Bank Marketing study BB&T took first place for Overall Customer Experience, while in the Technical Quality portion of the study Wells Fargo took first for Responsiveness (Speed), and U.S. Bank scored first for Reliability. The entire study is available for immediate purchase. To request more information please visit: http://bit.ly/BankingStudy. In other related news issued today (see separate press release), Keynote announced the winners of its latest Banking Scorecard, now in its 13th year, that scores 23 large and regional banks on more than 300 criteria describing customer experience best practices.

Winners of Keynote Competitive Research studies are invited to participate in the company’s Online Excellence Program which recognizes the "best of the best" websites as ranked in the studies. The rankings are based on responses from real users, who are observed as they accomplish tasks on each of the sites studied, as well as real data collected through Keynote website 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 online banking customers as they interacted with the websites of a total of 10 leading U.S. banks (200 people per site): Bank of America, BB&T, Chase, Citibank, Citizens Bank, PNC, Regions Bank, SunTrust, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

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. The data was collected every day over a one month period during the websites’ peak period (8:00 AM-Midnight, EST., Monday-Sunday).

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 websites 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 US Bank Marketing Websites

For the ‘Customer Experience’ component of the study, Keynote sent 200 U.S. resident Internet users to each of the 10 banking websites. The online panelists were asked to evaluate the site’s home page and think about how helpful the home page is for understanding what they are able to do on the site. Panelists were then asked to use the site to find a checking or savings account that might suit their needs. Next, panelists were asked to choose a specific checking or savings account and proceed through the process of opening that account on the site, going as far as possible without actually submitting the application. Finally, participants were asked to spend a few minutes to find all options available on the site to help resolve any problems or questions that may have arose during the research and application process.

The study revealed that when tested by actual users BB&T’s website (www.bbt.com) offers the strongest Overall Customer Experience, placing first in Brand Impact, Acquisition Impact and Customer Satisfaction and placing third in Online Adoption. Other key findings include:

• Design & Organization continues to be the most important aspect of the customer experience, predicting brand perceptions and customer acquisition;
• Offering Interest and Ease of Finding Account increased in importance in 2012;
• Customer Support and Site Performance declined slightly in importance in 2012;
• Ease of Opening Account, Other Financial Accounts Interest, Privacy & Security, Speed of Opening Account and Online Banking Interest remain influential drivers.

“Our 2012 study of U.S. banking websites revealed that when researching and opening a bank account online, good website design and organization and the ease with which panelists could find and open a deposit account were the leading predictors of a positive customer experience,” said Chris Musto, general manager of the Keynote Competitive Research group at Keynote. “BB&T outperformed many of its larger competitors in this study because of its clean design, strong functionality and intelligent approach to marketing its offerings.”

More Information about the Technical Quality Rankings in the US Bank Marketing Websites Study

In addition to evaluating customer experience with 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, researching and applying for a bank account online. Each measured transaction began at the site’s home page and then followed the process of searching for, selecting and applying for an account on the bank’s site. Based on the thousands of transactions monitored over the course of the study, U.S. Bank ranked first for Reliability, while Wells Fargo ranked first for Responsiveness (Speed).

In order to collect the Technical Quality data Keynote used its Transaction Perspective® product, the leading real browser-based service for measuring and monitoring website performance from the end user perspective. With Keynote Transaction Perspective the company examines website performance from multiple geographic locations by simulating users clicking through transactions on a website. Keynote collected approximately 6,000 data points that detailed each of the 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 view: http://bit.ly/BankingStudy.

About Keynote Systems

Keynote® Systems, Inc., (Nasdaq: KEYN) is the global leader in Internet and mobile cloud testing & monitoring. Keynote maintains the world’s largest on-demand performance monitoring and testing infrastructure for Web and mobile sites comprised of over 7,000 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 275 locations around the world that enable companies to continuously improve the online and mobile experience. Known as ‘The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™,’ Keynote offers three market-leading product platforms:

Keynote Perspective® provides on-demand performance monitoring for enterprise Web and mobile sites including online portals, e-commerce sites and B2B sites. Over 2,000 customers rely on Keynote Perspective services to know precisely how their websites, content, and applications perform on actual browsers, networks, and mobile devices.

Keynote DeviceAnywhere™ is an enterprise-class, cloud-based, mobile application lifecycle management (ALM) testing & quality assurance platform. It is used by over 1,000 mobile developers and enterprises to deliver mobile applications, content and services faster while reducing downtime and testing costs.

Keynote SIGOS offers active end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) testing and monitoring solutions for mobile, fixed and VoIP communications. Its SITE and Global Roamer products are used by over 200 network operators, content providers, carriers and regulators in over 100 countries worldwide.

Keynote's 4,000 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies and include American Express, AT&T, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Google, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Keynote Systems is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at http://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®, The Mobile & Internet Performance Authority™ 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. © 2012 Keynote Systems, Inc.

Source: Keynote Systems, Inc.

Keynote Systems, Inc.
Dan Berkowitz, 650-403-3305
dberkowitz@keynote.com