Website services

The Website take-up service (WTS) has been developed to help local authorities understand more about the numbers and profile of their website visitors, what services they are looking to use, whether the site enables them to do what they set out to do, and how the website's performance compares with those of other, similar councils. Specifically, the service tells users:

• how successful the website is at dealing with customer enquiries
• levels of potential 'avoidable contact' generated from failed web enquiries
• which services perform best (or worst) online
• what proportion of local residents use the website

The service, which is used by more than a third of all councils, offers a pop-up survey to every fifth visitor to the website, which includes space for free text comments. Participation rates are high and the service is receiving a minimum of 25,000 completed surveys a month.

Please note that this service uses cookies so you may wish to read our cookies advice.

Subscribers receive:

• qualitative and quantitative information about visitors to their website(s) provided through a wide variety of reporting options, including access to an online results portal proving results up to the previous 24 hours
• benchmarking of visitor information against that of other participating local authorities
• a monthly spreadsheet with analysis of all the results from all participants by month and type of authority
• a summary report of the key messages, lessons learnt and case studies
• free places at information sharing workshops with other subscribers
• access to the WTS online discussion forum

The visitor survey

The exit survey that collects the data for the Website take-up service is added to participating authorities' websites and is launched (by a piece of code invisible to the user) as every fifth visitor leaves the site.  The software prevents repeat invitations (through use of cookies), whether or not the respondent has said 'Yes' or 'No', until such time as the survey is updated (usually every 12 months), when earlier invitations are ignored.

The survey asks sixteen questions and takes between three and four minutes to complete. Supporting software collects the answers and analyses results in a variety of ways, allowing subscribers to look at findings from their own website and compare them with findings from the rest of the subscriber group. Access to results is through an online portal and a monthly summary spreadsheet.

The survey questions include:

• How did you find out about the website?
• What was the main service area that you were interested in today?
• Did you find what you were looking for today?
• How would you rate your satisfaction with different features of the website?
• How likely are you to return to this website in the future?
• A series of questions about the respondent's race, gender, age, location etc
• An invitation to comment on their experience using a free text box

The service uses software developed by rol (owners of Govmetric, a complimentary service that is part of the Customer Access Improvement Service). 

The Website take-up service operates exclusively for local authority customers, but a comparable facility is available to other parts of the public sector (eg police, fire, health services, government departments and agencies etc.). Please contact insight@socitm.net for further details.

What it costs and how to join

A one year subscription to the Website take-up service costs £1,200 for an existing Socitm Insight subscriber (£800 for shire district subscribers) or £2,300 for other local authorities. [Registration fee of £350 applies in year one only].

You can start subscribing by filling in our Website take-up service order form or if you have further questions, contact Terry Madgwick for further information (terry.madgwick@socitm.net / 01483 855288).

There are also twice yearly best practice events open to subscribers and potential subscribers. These take place each June and December.

Website performance improvement service leaflet (713.69 KB PDF)