• U.S. Bank Scores First in Brand Impact and Customer Satisfaction Categories
• In Technical Quality Categories American Express Takes Top Honors for Reliability, U.S. Bank Scores First for Responsiveness (Speed)
• Credit Card Satisfaction, Site Organization, Ease of Exploring Online Services, Security Satisfaction and Visual Appeal are Top Drivers for brand outcome and customer acquisition likelihood

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SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 2013-- Keynote® (NASDAQ: KEYN), the global leader in Internet and mobile cloud testing and monitoring, today announced the results of a new study examining the business effectiveness of U.S. credit card marketing websites. In the latest Keynote study of Credit Card websites, U.S. Bank took first place for Overall Customer Experience, while American Express took first for Reliability and U.S. Bank scored highest for Responsiveness (Speed). The entire study is available for immediate purchase. To request more information please visit: http://bit.ly/2012creditcardstudy.

The study is part of the work performed by Keynote Competitive Research, the competitive research group within Keynote. Winners of Keynote Competitive Research studies are able 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 were observed as they accomplished 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 conducted online user testing sessions with more than 1,800 prospective customers (225 per site) from across the United States as each interacted with the website of one of eight US Credit Card issuers: American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Discover, PNC and U.S. Bank.

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.

For the Customer Experience portion of the U.S. Credit Card Prospects Study, consumers who did not already have a credit card with a given issuer were asked to visit the issuer’s home page and then complete three tasks. First, they navigated around the site seeking information on a credit card to suit their needs. Next, they started the process of applying for a credit card of interest to them, going as far as possible without actually submitting the application. Finally, they explored the online services available on the site for accessing and managing credit card accounts (e.g., viewing account balance, paying credit card bill), learning about the specific online account features, benefits, and policies.

The study revealed that when tested by actual consumers U.S. Bank’s website (www.usbank.com) offered the strongest overall Customer Experience, and finished first in the Brand Impact and Customer Satisfaction Overall Customer Experience categories. Other key findings include:

• Site Organization, comprised of 10 metrics measuring reaction to the homepage and overall site design, was a top predictor of brand outcomes and the second biggest predictor of acquisition;
• U.S. Bank, Discover, Chase, and PNC comprised the top tier for Overall Customer Experience;
• Discover led a field of five issuers comprising the top tier for Acquisition;
• Chase led a field of five issuers comprising the top tier for Online Adoption.

“Our quantitative analysis revealed that when actual consumers visited the card marketing sites, satisfaction with the credit card products drove acquisition likelihood, but so did aspects of the site that go well beyond the terms of the card issuer,” said Chris Musto, general manager of the Keynote Competitive Research group at Keynote.

More Information about the Technical Quality Rankings in the U.S. Credit Card Prospects 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 locations across the U.S., Keynote measured a typical transaction of starting at the issuer’s Home Page and going through the process of finding and applying for a credit card, stopping where applicants were asked for their identity. Based on the thousands of transactions monitored over the course of the study, American Express ranked first in Reliability, with a perfect score of 1000, while U.S. Bank scored highest in site Responsiveness (or 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 and acquisition impact and the customer experiences driving 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/2012creditcardstudy.

About Keynote

Keynote® (NASDAQ:KEYN) is the global leader in Internet and mobile cloud testing & monitoring. The company 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. Keynote currently collects over 700 million mobile and Web performance measurements daily and in 2012 was recognized by Forbes as “One of the Best 100 Companies in America” with under one billion in revenue. 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® provides the industry's only true cloud-based platform for testing and monitoring the functionality, usability, performance and availability of mobile applications and websites. It's suite of mobile testing solutions is used by over 1,000 mobile developers and enterprises to deliver quality mobile applications and services to the mobile channel.

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, Inc. 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 (1-800-539-6683).

The trademarks or registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries include Keynote^®, DataPulse^®, Keynote Customer Experience Rankings^®, Perspective^®, Keynote Red Alert^®, Keynote WebEffective^®, The Internet Performance Authority^®, MyKeynote^®, SIGOS^®, SITE^®, keynote^® The Mobile & Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote FlexUse^®, Keynote DeviceAnywhere^®, Keynote DeviceAnywhere Test Center^®, Keynote DemoAnywhere^® and Keynote MonitorAnywhere^® All related trademarks, trade names, logos, characters, design and trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2013 Keynote Systems, Inc.

Source: Keynote Systems, Inc.

Keynote
Dan Berkowitz, 650-403-3305 (Media)
dberkowitz@keynote.com