4Q Results: Web-Wide Task Completion Slips in August

As an update to a previous post and to reemphasize the value of listening continuously to the voice of real visitors in real situations, we’ve gone ahead and mined our 4Q respondent database to calculate web-wide task completion rates for the last two months. As loyal readers of this blog (we know you’re out there!) know, we’re firm believers in the fact that task completion is the most useful heartbeat metric to determine visit success. The cagey interactive marketer identifies the primary reasons for his/her site’s existence, translates them into task that visitors can accomplish, and then tracks and trends this simple and beautiful metric over time.

Task completion is the conversion yardstick for the other 97% of website activities that don’t involve buying. But web-wide task completion dipped by 2 points in August, as the chart below illustrates.

So, what’s going on? Here’s where 4Q makes it easy for us to figure out the answer to this question. Task completion isn’t just a dry, lifeless metric that sits idly on a corporate dashboard; it’s living, breathing indicator of site health, and it ties directly into actionable insights. We analyzed and coded a random sample of the open-ended reasons why visitors didn’t complete their primary tasks.

Among the top culprits, we found three familiar and nettlesome issues:

1) Lack of sufficiently detailed information (20%). Some representative examples of actual commentary:
- “Information was limited. Styles typically found in the stores not indicated. I was pre-shopping and was unable to make a list of items to look for when I visit the store.”
- “There wasn't enough info about the surrounding area to let me know what entertainment there is in the area.”
- “Although the basic information is very comprehensive there was little specific information on the impact of this issue in Northern Ireland.”

2) An inability to locate a specific item/product (19%). Some representative examples of actual commentary:
- "I wanted to find out if I could sell my old golf clubs but you did not have the kind of clubs I have and the other clubs I do have you did not have the prices on them.”
- “Not all products are available to buy online…also that the products that are not available to buy online do not have there prices listed?”
- “I was trying to get the podcast for the online sermons but was unable to do so.”
3) Ineffective site search (11%). Some representative examples of actual commentary:
- “From my search on this site, I could only find one bed per unit. We needed 2 beds in a unit, not 1 bed & 1 sofa bed.”
- “I typed in the synonyms I wanted to search for, but all they gave me was an error message.”
- “I was searching for easy reading study bible for an incarcerated person. Trying to determine if Jesus' sayings in red. I could tell on some others I couldn't.” (This one was just so quirky, I had to include it!)

Given the similarity and overlap between the top 3 gripes, it’s obvious that site owners have their work cut out for them. Quite simply, internal site search is failing too frequently, products aren’t readily retrievable, and there’s an overall paucity of product information. Interactive marketers: get to work!