(Update: readers were invited to answer a two-question survey, now closed. Results soon)
Arriva landed second place in the Investis FTSE 250 quarterly ranking of corporate websites. Yes, incredible though it is, someone, somewhere beavers away ranking such things.
The FTSE 250 is loosely the list of the 101st to 350th largest companies on the London stock exchange. To come second is a tremendous accomplishment. To achieve this accolade, the web design needs to be crisp and clear, colourful and simple, obviously, but there’s much more to it. Investis has 188 categories, in fact. You and I might rank the site on its look, transport functionality and feel. Investis considers more sober components such as corporate governance, investor relations, corporate strategy, business performance and, with increasing importance, third party content. This is a *corporate* ranking, remember.
Why would a corporate website want third party (someone else’s) content together with its own? Independent opinion fosters trust and the use of this is growing markedly but we don’t see this on any corporate transport website within the Big Five. May be that’s to come. Perhaps they might even choose something from this blog, in the same way that Transit, for example, has done. As if.
So, Arriva is second. Note also that Stagecoach is fifth and National Express, seventh. Bravo to all three. Go Ahead languishes at no.57.
But what about First Group’s site? That’s an entirely different animal. First’s not in the FTSE 250 for the purposes of this survey; rather, it’s been lumped by Investis in the FTSE top 100. Here, it’s down one at no. 75, scoring lower than Arriva, Stagecoach and NatEx and this in spite of a significant makeover within the last six months.
Investis suggests that a good corporate website also needs to show the importance of senior leadership (interview, statements, etc). First’s Moir Lockhead once played his part on his website and his presence must’ve scored highly. But where are the British senior executive blogs you find in the States?
i Investis report here
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Web Wise
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4 comments:
No, FirstGroup is not in the FTSE 100 - it was removed sometime ago!
BTW - it's loosely (not losely), the adverb. Lose is a verb. The British seem to have particular trouble with lose/loose these days.
Thanks Stephen. Now remedied. Note that it was Investis who placed First in the FTSE 100.
I find Arriva's website to be very poor. It is not designed to be customer friendly, it is aimed at the Corporate side. I prefer the National Express approach (for once) where the user can choose an option for corporate. This will reflect the user numbers.
Interesting that the Arriva corporate site is highly rated, because www.arrivabus.co.uk is utterly, utterly absymal. It shows no consideration to usability or accessibility. Some of that is architectural in the site, but other things are relatively minor tweaks, but despite repeated complaining (using a number of different aliases!) they have failed to take any steps to rectify the problems.
When I complained recently that their website doesn't even recognise the existence of Wetherby (market town with population 10k and the terminus of two distinct Arriva route groups), they advised me to use Traveline to plan my journey ... a pretty good admission of cluelessness if ever I heard one!
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