Overall: Symantec.com
Usability & Effectiveness: Symantec.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: Microsoft.com

Each business software site’s redesign over the past year has caused content and features to shrink on a huge scale. But did these diets help the sites’ usability scores? At least one Website should think so.  Here’s the rundown from first place to last:

1. Any Web team that focuses on site usability should put Symantec.com at the top of its watch list. This site’s usability ranking not only debuted at number 2 on the siteIQ Enterprise Software Index, but held its number 1 position in usability while stealing first place in overall performance from Microsoft.com in the siteIQ Business Software Index. Not bad for a year’s work.
2. Microsoft.com’s site reductions during its rolling redesign took a toll on its performance this year. It is still the ten-ton gorilla in the business software segment, but its third place usability ranking is pure monkey business.
3. Adobe.com’s story is similar to Microsoft.com’s. It is the smallest of the business software sites reviewed—and it got smaller over the course of the year. But unlike Microsoft.com, Adobe.com brings in relatively admirable usability scores. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to reach any of the brass rings in 2011.

There’s plenty more rankings & ratings – and our take on the evaluation results – in our new Business Software Report.  Subscribers can pick up a copy in the Library. If you aren’t a subscriber you can learn more here…..

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So much for conventional wisdom.

For the most part, I’d rather have a root canal than use most support Websites.

Search for information and you end up with a list of a bazillion documents with truncated descriptions that read like Sanskrit.

Want to take a different path? Try ferreting your product out of a laundry list of every product the company ever made.

Or try the “follow our logical links” scenario—where you end up drilling to China.

At the end of all of this wonderfulness is the real insult. Support content that either requires an engineering degree to understand—or a wad of general purpose instructions that dance around the problem and miss the issue by a country mile.

Finally, don’t get me started about most site’s support program content. (You know, the stuff that explains why you have to pay to play.)  First, you can’t find it. When you do, it’s packed with so many superlatives you need a dictionary to figure it out.

Honestly, you’d think support teams would get it after doodling on the Web for 16 years.

Drum Roll, Please

Given my opinion of support on the Web, I was surprised how much the 2011 support evaluations reflected my opinions of these support sites. Most of the sites we evaluated deliver half of the content, features & capabilities deployed on best-in-class support sites. With the exception of four sites—Cisco.com, Symantec.com, IBM.com and the IBM Software Group site—every site’s usability misses the Good Practice mark.

I’d probably throw a bone to Dell.com, EMC.com, and Microsoft.com for coming close—but the rest are simply not up to snuff.

I’ve just finished putting the finishing touches on our new 2011 online support rankings and ratings report which published today. Here’s some of the more interesting things in this new report.

IBM, Dell and HP have all the goodies

IBM.com’s, Dell.com’s and HP.com’s monster-size support sites handed them the top rankings this year. If you want to create a world-class support size packed with every bell and whistle, you don’t have to look much further than here. Among the players, Dell.com is the biggest, but IBM.com puts its goodies together to better effect (its usability ranks third; Dell.com ranks fifth).

This brings me to the real tail that wags the dog.

Cisco.com proves an important point

When usability is the issue, we’ve always said that small can be mighty—and Cisco.com proves the point. Cisco.com’s support site took first place usability honors—which is a testament to all of the hard work we’ve seen on the site this year. If you are a siteIntelligence Case Studies Library subscriber, you can see Cisco.com’s best-in-class innovations here: https://siteiq.centraldesktop.com/sirc/blog/1088332/view/bytag/cisco (Category: support, Tag: cisco). (Have your login info handy).

From a usability perspective, Cisco.com has the most complete roster of support information that is easy to find. To see why, take Cisco.com’s site search engine for a spin and pay attention to post search filtering capabilities. Then check out the support zone’s fly-out navigational panel. If you want to learn why these matter, check out Cisco.com’s best practice case studies here: https://siteiq.centraldesktop.com/sirc/blog/1088332/view/bytag/cisco. (You guessed it: subscription & login required.)

Finding support content on most sites is a "Where's Waldo?" moment. Only 5 sites hit the mark.

Not so fast. The winners should cancel their victory lap.

So where are the pleasant surprises? Put Brocade.com, EMC.com, and Symantec.com on that list.

• Brocade.com has the most complete & thorough support program information (a Best Practice) -– and does the best job of encouraging visitors to take the next step.
• EMC.com’s support program information is easier to find—and does the best job of providing program contact information.
• Symantec.com delivers the best support click streams, which generated the highest Good Practice rating for all of its hard work.

And what about the rest of the pack? You know, those other 13 support Websites on the evaluation list?  Let’s just say there was another interesting surprise.

Earth to enterprise: what are you thinking?

With the exception of IBM Software Group, enterprise software sites need to up their usability game. From my perspective, their rankings are downright embarrassing.

CA.com ranks 11^th, Oracle.com ranks 12^th and SAP.com brings up the back of the pack in 15^th place. The only support sites that are worse than these triplets are reseller sites (CDW.com, Insight.com and Newegg.com) –and they don’t provide much, if any, support on their sites. Yikes!

So how does IBM Software Group stay out of this industry ditch? IBM.com’s highly integrated support portal is the wind beneath its wings. To see why this portal delivers a bit of online support nirvana, check out our case study in the Library: https://siteiq.centraldesktop.com/sirc/blogentry/5334686/. (Yep, you’ll need that pesky login information).

Dell.com support is really a tale of two cities.

Finally, no analysis is complete without taking a look at the conventional wisdom corner; in this case the prevailing belief that Dell.com operates the biggest and best online support site. This may (or may not) be true behind the Dell Premier firewall—but it’s a mixed bag if you are on the public side of the equation.

When the numbers are rolled up, Dell.com’s support zone’s content, features & capabilities rank #1, but its usability slips into fifth place–right behind the IBM Software Group site. As important, it only ranks first in one out of ten usability categories (a Good Practice for support zone logic). Other than that, Dell.com persistently ranks in second and third place.

The bottom line

So there you have it. The roster of winners based on 138 things support sites should provide–plus ten ways they should help users achieve their objectives. For the top five, I send hardy congratulations. For the rest of the pack, roll up your sleeves. There’s lots of work ahead.

Overall: Oracle.com
Usability & Effectiveness: IBM Software Group
Content, Features & Capabilities: Oracle.com

With two companies performing complete site overhauls–and one nudging its site into place over the past year—rankings were bound to change in 2011. So which sites were the major movers and shakers over the past 12 months? Which ones are the sites to watch through 2012? Here’s the rundown from first place to last:

1. This year Oracle.com retained its title as the content “big foot” on the siteIQ eBusiness Index (1)—and this footprint worked to deliver it the first place ranking. On the other hand, a broader look at the enterprise software industry shows that Oracle.com doesn’t have any room to rest on its laurels. Now it has CA.com gunning to be an enterprise software Goliath and IBM Software is upping the usability bar. To compete in the future, Oracle.com needs to up its game.
2. Incremental change was the name of the game at CA.com. That’s not to say there were any major splashes or “ta da’s”. Just a series of re-launches and endless tweaking that ended up creating a noticeable transformation. On the other hand, one look at CA.com’s scores and rankings shows that change isn’t always a good thing. CA.com lost its #1 usability ranking (dropped to third)—and is the only site that registered a net decrease in its usability & effectiveness score.
3. IBM Software’s latest site redesign is part of IBM.com’s Centennial revamp that is trying to change all of the rules. Here, The IBM Software team’s hard work—and CA.com’s tumble—delivered it the first place usability & effectiveness ranking and the only Good Practice rating in the group. The site’s renovation also delivered more content & features—but the real story is the site’s impressive string of 13 “Good Practice” usability ratings. The fact that its online communities are now visible on the site didn’t hurt either.
4. We didn’t add Symantec.com to the enterprise software mix this year because it’s selling large, complex software solutions. We added it because the enterprise systems “big wigs” are continuing to move down market with SMB and SaaS solutions that rely on the kinds of marketing and eCommerce capabilities that have long been a Symantec.com forte. So how did Symantec.com fare when compared to its mega software brethren? On the one hand, there’s no doubt that Symantec’s content & features are the size of a newt (relatively speaking). On the other hand, Symantec.com proves that small can be mighty. It usability & effectiveness debuted at second place—which proves that it knows how to capitalize on every single asset.
5. In April the German giant SAP.com unveiled a ginormous make-over that is still a work in progress. But if early scores are any indication, this new site is likely to give other sites a run for their money. Within a month of launch, this partial implementation was already moving the site’s content and usability & effectiveness scoring needles in the right direction. It ranks fifth to be sure—but its strong showing tells us that SAP.com will be a serious competitor within the next 12 months.
6. SAS.com’s scores paint a picture of a site that is running hard to stay in place. Here, substantial corporate marketing-class additions and improved communities visibility delivered the largest increase in overall content, features & capabilities scores—but burning the content midnight oil didn’t move its usability & effectiveness scores one whit. It ends up in 6th place (that’s dead last) with a 50.96% score and two stars (below average).

There’s plenty more rankings & ratings – and our take on the evaluation results – in our new Enterprise Software Report.

(1) Note: Oracle.com’s hardware product areas (a.k.a. Sun Microsystems hardware & systems) were not reviewed for this industry segment.

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Related research: The eBusiness Index Report.  If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.

In my last post, I shared some info about the top five Websites on the siteIQ eBusiness Index. Here’s my interesting surprises and “oops” list:

Symantec.com’s usability ranks second, and the site misses a “Good Practice” rating by a hair.

Juniper.net and Oracle.com complete the usability top five. Of the two, Juniper.net is most likely to move up a slot and knock CA.com off its perch.

Intel.com aced the online recruiting category and is the only four star (the best) in this category. (OK, so most recruiting zones are a big snooze – but we have to give Intel.com chops for its four star performance).

Services marketing continues to be Nortel.com’s claim to fame; HP.com and IBM.com are still second tier contenders.

Juniper.net hits the high note in the communities category – but Cisco.com and Intel.com also operate four star (the best) communities. (This is another way of saying that the new guys are zipping past community pioneers).

If call to action is your bag, look no further than Cisco.com. It is the only call to action “Best Practice” site on the eBusiness Index.

Newegg.com’s e-commerce capabilities puts it with the big boys: Dell.com & HP.com. Newegg ranks third with four stars (the best) and a “Good Practice” nod.

A couple of new entrants on the 2010 eBusiness Index roster did better than expected.

• Brocade.com and EMC.com rank 7^th and 8^th on the usability chart – and finish in the middle of the pack when all of the scores are tallied up (EMC.com ranks 12^th; Brocade ranks 14^th).

• Among the sites that debuted on the Index in 2010, Deloitte.com and SAS.com turned out to be boat anchors. Deloitte finished dead last – and SAS.com debuted in 17^th place (out of 23 Websites).

Related research: The eBusiness Index Report.  If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.

Your support site is supposed to be the fount of knowledge for your customers—and a way to prove your excellence to prospects engaged in the buying process. It’s there to solve your customer’s problems. Speed them the information they need. Show them how to use your product. Make all of the wrongs with your product right.

Since happy customers are the cornerstone of successful companies, it would make sense that support sites would be laser focused on sending all of the right messages – right? Wrong. Most are actually sending plenty of wrong messages – and what they are really saying is startling.

Message: Customers = walking wallets | When customers hit your support site, they are working in a single reality: your product is broken and they want you to fix it fast – and preferably for free. The last thing they want to see is a laundry list of expensive support services. And unless you are fixing their problem, they don’t want to see this information along the click stream either. In fact, front & center support services really tell customers what they don’t want to hear: that you expect them to open their wallets because the product you sold them doesn’t work. It’s also a great way to remind them that the next time they purchase your product they are likely to be nickeled & dimed them to death.

Message: You’re part of the “in crowd” — or maybe you’re not | Too many support sites think it’s cool to put the “top” answers for their “top” products front & center on the support home page. It’s a real boon for the ‘in crowd” who bought a really popular product that seems to be constantly broken in five or ten ways. All of the unpopular kids, on the other hand, will have to pay to play. Some will pay in time while they wade through mountains of unfiltered results. Others will pay in treasure when they have to slap down their credit card to buy support services they didn’t know they would need.

As it turns out, playing the “top ten” game fares best with prospects who are considering buying one of the cool products on your list, since it tells them they’ll have easy access to answers for their problems. Those looking to buy a not so popular product? They can hold out hope that their future problem will be a popular one. Of course, if it’s that popular, it’s probably a good reason not to buy.

Message: Don’t fix it, buy a new one | My favorite way to make a bad impression comes from companies that use a big chunk of support real estate to peddle their latest product release. Think of it as a form of “watch the birdie” where companies distract users from the fact that real support resources are in short supply, and finding support for previous versions is going to require a shovel. That is, of course, before some customers find out that their “old” product isn’t supported at all.

I can’t figure out why companies operating support sites keep sending these messages to current and future customers. They make current users feel like they have to pay premium prices for a one minute answer – which inevitably sends them into the arms of the (unvarnished) Internet to get results. Meanwhile prospects get a couple of messages that most companies don’t intend to send. It puts all of problems with the “cool” products front & center, which suggests that even more is broken in the wings. As important, it says that support will be readily available as long as another product doesn’t enter the limelight. After that they’ll get the same treatment as the customers who were foolish enough to buy a product last year.

Smart companies recognize that support isn’t just a break/fix moment. It is a key a part of the buying process. When support is done right, prospects will become customers, and customers will become repeat customers.

Which brings me to my question. What messages are you sending on your support site? Are they the messages you want your customers to hear?

It was a bit of a lark, to be sure. And like many of our larks, it delivered some interesting results.

To see why, take a peek at this graph that illustrates how the communities operated by seven leading IT companies fare based on 32 usability metrics.

First, the good news. SAP and Citrix deliver pretty much what is expected. The bad news for Citrix is that, at a 54% usability score, its community doesn’t look very usable – and it isn’t. At the other end of the spectrum, SAP’s communities appear to be the most usable – and (dismal look and feel aside) they are.

Next, let’s look at the sites that exceeded expectations. That would be Dell. My tour of the community delivered Dell an average 69.1% usability score. At 70.8%, Kenna’s power drive says that Dell’s communities actually deliver slightly more than expected.

This leaves us with the communities that are like an unfortunate blind date. Among these, EMC and Oracle fared worst.

My tour of EMC’s communities delivered good, but not great, usability results (62.4%), but Kenna’s deep dive shows that once you get past the flash, this community is almost unusable.

Oracle also seemed to be a reasonably usable venue if you are just lurking around, and my usability scores averaged out to 60.8%. By the time Kenna finished rambling through the site’s inconsistent behaviors and technical problems, she thought 54% was a gift.

These stats don’t come as much of a surprise since tough times call for more attention to how effectively the company’s Website creates – and more importantly, harvests – qualified prospects. Face it, nothing beats a Website for its global reach and the ability to win and woo potential buyers at the lowest possible cost.

Given these realities, it should be really interesting to see if the sales forces we test have finally gotten eselling religion. I wouldn’t bet on it

This, of course, brings me to an interesting question. Assuming the Website does its job, what happens next? Are salespeople actually contacting ‘anatomically correct’ prospects streaming in from your Website – or is your sales force still playing the same games we’ve seen in previous years? Which leading IT companies are doing the best job harvesting interested buyers? Which companies need to kick their sales force in the pants?

Since selling is the name of the game these days, we’ve decided to launch our 10th siteIQ Secret Prospect study this week. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this study, here’s the basic approach in four easy steps.

1. We create a fictitious buyer with the right title, authority, budget, and buying timeline.
2. We go out to every Website on the siteIQ eBusiness Index, pick one or more products or categories, and test different ways to engage with the sales force. We fill out the contact forms, send emails, and hit the “call me now” buttons. About the only thing we don’t bother to do is request an online chat (previous tests show that these features typically work like a charm).
3. Along the way, we document every part of the process. We identify how many inappropriate questions are required on forms. We note all of the promises made, including when we should receive a response. We check to make sure privacy policies are front and center. After we’re finished, we measure how effectively the company continues to market to prospects and how efficiently it connects them back to the right place on the site.
4. Then we sit back and start the stopwatch. We track when the salesperson calls, when we receive various emails – and how often the company’s sales organization reaches out. After 18 days, we close the study, add up the numbers, and publish the results.

Looks pretty simple, but the results can sometimes be damning. I’ve provided a peek into how companies like Oracle, IBM, HP, Adobe, CA, Microsoft, Symantec, Cisco, Nortel, Accenture, and EDS fared in our last test in the siteIntelligence Research Center (siteIQ clients can log in here). From a big picture perspective, here’s how the industry’s biggest players tend to behave.

• Getting a response across a company’s product groups is largely the luck of the draw. One product group will respond within minutes, while others fiddle around for days (if you are lucky).
• About half of our requests go into a black hole. Meanwhile, sales chat almost always delivers the goods, while request a quote and email requests are hit and miss at best.
• Handoffs to partners almost never work (typically a function of incompetent handoffs, plus partners who apparently don’t like the vendor’s leads).
• Finally, few companies follow up on prospect requests unless the prospect calls back – and almost none use email (cheap, fast, and effective) to keep prospects warm.

Given these realities, it should be really interesting to see if the sales forces we test have finally gotten eselling religion. I wouldn’t bet on it. After nine of these tests, my bet is that we’ll see the same old dysfunctional behaviors. On the other hand, I’m ready to be pleasantly surprised. We’ll be posting real-time results in the siteIntelligence Research Center — and will publish the winners and losers here in April. Stay tuned.

Insight.com and Newegg.com both receive scores that place them in a league with IT industry leaders — and well ahead of one of their major partners — HP.

When I rolled up the first quarter 2008 usability numbers this week, a couple of interesting facts jumped out. First, Newegg.com’s product marketing score is nearly 71%, which puts it on par with the eBusiness Index average (71.38%) — and places it in close proximity to enterprise systems heavyweights in the effectiveness rankings. Second, and more important, all three reseller sites — Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com — earn e-selling-related usability scores that are well above the eBusiness Index average, and actually rival those of the ultimate online channel — Dell.com.

Admittedly, these are two bright spots in an otherwise checkered usability landscape for these companies.  Website design and navigation & architecture scores average around 60% — well below the target 75% score. Corporate marketing comes in at an embarrassing 44%, and services marketing & support scores sit in the mid 30% range. To add insult to injury, these sites clock equally appalling training & education scores that average around 30%. Community/industry marketing scores are the true disappointment, however. Here, the mean usability score doesn’t even crack 25%. So much for Web 2.0 among leading reseller sites.

Despite these bumps in the road, I have to give the teams managing Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com credit for focusing on “Job One” in their universe: making products easy for visitors to purchase online, and delivering persistent call to action elements that encourage visitors to become customers. These behaviors, combined with competitive pricing that often meets or beats the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, are undoubtedly partially responsible for the growing popularity of these (and other) reseller sites.

It’s my contention, however, that the real reason these sites are selling record numbers of their partner’s/supplier’s products is an architectural structure that facilitates forward momentum based on customer specifications and/or requirements. At these sites, visitors dictate the context in which they view products, and no matter the route taken, pricing and the ability to begin the purchasing process are central elements of the click stream. In fact, in contrast to some enterprise-class sites where purchasing the exact same product often requires navigational gyrations through  mountains of poorly organized content, these leading reseller sites make online purchasing a breeze.

Oracle.com doesn’t bother with sorting by company size; on Oracle.com it’s every company for himself

I was in a meeting the other day with a client providing a readout of their most recent siteIQ results. Our diagnostics analysis was around the site’s community marketing effectiveness—and the conversation turned to the  problems that crop up when a company doesn’t clearly identify how it defines small business vs. medium-sized businesses on the site. I was astonished when I receive push back on this notion and a suggestion that small business and medium business definitions were pretty much standard across IT companies on the Web.

What Web are these folks looking at?

If you cruise around the IT Web, the one thing that is obvious is that there are few standards, and even fewer IT vendors identify who fits in what bucket. Just for giggles, consider this:

IBM.com operates separate small business and medium business zones; presumably enterprise customers have full run of the site. HP.com divides its site into Home/Home Office, Small & Medium Business, and Enterprise. Dell.com sorts by Home/Home Office, Small Business and Medium & Large Business zones. No standards here and definitions are blissfully absent from these sites.

Want to play with software? CA.com offers Home and Home Office, and Small and Medium Business zones; like IBM.com, enterprise companies are presumably left to wander around the site. Symantec operates separate Home/Home Office, Small and Midsized Business, and Enterprise Solutions zones. SAP limits its community play to a Small Business Solutions zone; I guess medium and large businesses have to fend for themselves. Oracle.com doesn’t bother with sorting by company size; on Oracle.com it’s every company for himself. When you roll all of these behaviors up, its pretty clear that standards in the software industry are nonexistent. Of the companies discussed, only Symantec.com bothers to provide any definitions.

Finally, no run is complete without some quality time in the networking pen. Cisco.com operates Home & Home Office, Small & Medium Business, and Large Enterprise zones. Nortel limits its coverage to Small & Medium Business and Enterprise zones. Novell limits its audiencing strategy to a Small Business zone. No standards here either.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are no community marketing standards in the IT industry. Picking the wrong community marketing approach can also create additional work

This of course, brings me to the point. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are no community marketing standards in the IT industry. Picking the wrong community marketing approach can also create additional work. Of the options on the board, organizing your communities around Home & Home Office, Small & Medium business and Enterprise Business creates the least confusion. These categories are self-evident for most visitors and it’s unlikely that a visitor will pick the wrong category and end up wandering through the wilderness into another zone.

On the other hand, if operating separate small business and medium business zones is your cup of tea, telling visitors how you define these segments is critical to success. Sans that information, visitors will end up staring at your community list wondering if they are a bigger than a breadbasket or smaller than a kumquat. If they make the wrong decision, they get a fun-filled hour of pogo-sticking between these zones trying to ferret out which one serves their needs.

As for approaches, that’s a mixed bag as well. Based on our research, employee headcounts make the most sense. Here, the very loose rule of thumb seems to be that small businesses have less than 100 employees. Medium businesses, on the other hand, are a nightmare to define. Depending on the vendor, the high end for these companies can range from 1,000 to 10,000 employees. At 10,000 employees, of course, this definition begins to bleed into the enterprise business category—which is a whole ‘nuther Oprah I’m not going to touch.