What chief executives must know about their websites
Thursday 8th April 2010
Chief executives should be asking three key questions about their websites, now that most customer interactions are online, says a new briefing from Socitm Insight.
These are the cost of failed visits to the council website, the proportion of all enquiries now coming in via the website; and the top ten things people come to the council website to do.
In the new briefing on websites, written especially for local authority chief executives, Socitm argues that with the majority of council enquiries now coming in via the website (a fact that may come as a surprise to most council chief executives) understanding the performance of this key customer access channel has become a legitimate concern for council top teams.
What all council chief executives must ask about their website suggests that top managers in many councils still believe the website is a minority channel, and that most customers prefer to use the phone to contact them. This may well be what customers tell researchers they do, says the briefing, but based on data about actual visits to council websites, the reality is that for many enquiries, customers actually prefer the web.
The 4pp briefing is being mailed to all chief executives and pdf versions of this, and a longer, 12pp version, are downloadable from this site now for Socitm Insight subscribers. These items are not separately available to non-subscribers, although the 4pp version will be sent with orders of the main Better connected 2010 report.
Subscribe to the Socitm news feed
