Top British company Web sites not up to scratch

Citation

Mabey, C. and Thompson, A. (2001), "Top British company Web sites not up to scratch", European Business Review, Vol. 13 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2001.05413aab.002

Top British company Web sites not up to scratch

Top British company Web sites not up to scratch

Keywords Internet

They may look glossy, they look good, but the Web sites of the companies in the FTSE 100 Index are not up to scratch. Unless they start to improve the content now and to understand the Web audience, then top British companies are going to lose out on one of the few sectors of the market that is growing explosively. That is the verdict from Best Company Sites, who are Web site analysts for publicly owned companies.

The company says that these companies are too concerned with pushing the prestige of their global corporations at us, impressing us with their advertising glitz and are not concerned enough with what really matters on the Web, which is building loyal "communities".

With some sites you can wait minutes for them to load unnecessary graphics which do nothing for the viewer. Not only that but 30 per cent of the biggest companies in the country have sites that cannot be found in the leading search engines. Indeed one of them, Reckitt Benckiser, is using a company name which they dropped last December.

"In tomorrow's world you have to win share of the Web, not only share of the market", says David Pinless, one of the partners in the firm. "To do that you have to understand the essential nature of the Web audience which is different from a normal customer base. These companies will have to put good, helpful, general information on their Web sites, perhaps not even related to their own products, in order to keep people coming back time and again. If they do not do it, then you can be sure that their global competitors will."

The best site of all, they say, is that of Boots plc for its general approach to the building of a community. There is good helpful information on the site that would make a woman mark it as a favourite. Tesco on the other hand is the most effective at selling its products from its site. The media sites are very good as well for news and sports content.

Worst sites are from those companies that clearly are showing no interest in the Internet at all. They include Associated British Foods, Anglo American Corporation and British Aerospace.

"They have got to sort it out within three years", adds David Pinless. "The Web is only reaching about 25 per cent of homes and not every business is using it yet, but the prospects for business-to-business use are far greater than those of the consumer market. There are already over 150 million people using the Web around the world, and this is expected to double in two years."

The biggest problem that customers have when facing big companies is their inability to be taken seriously when they have a complaint. Yet not one big company offers a chance for customers and users to air their grievances.

The analysis can be seen at www.bestcompanysites.com

Further information is available from Dorothy O'Rourke, Best Company Sites, 6 St Georges Place, Brighton, East Sussex, BNI 4GA. Tel: +44 (0)1273 570144; Fax: +44 (0)1273 570133; E-mail team@bestcompanysites.co.uk