Web wide task completion. Where do you stack up?

Following up on Michael Whitehouse’s post last week’s about how the American financial crisis is negatively affecting task completion on the websites of financial service providers, we’re unveiling Q3 task completion scores for all the other major verticals represented in the 4Q family of users.

- Entertainment websites lead the way, with a task completion score that leads the pack by 8 points.
- Task completion is three points above the average on automotive sites. Good news for car manufacturers at a time when gas prices are still at historical highs and North American vehicle sales are slumping.
- Hospitality sites are feeling the pinch generating by the credit crunch, fear about job security, and high commodity prices. For a lot of people, anxiety about the future is mitigating the desire to travel and those who do are increasingly shopping for steep discounts.
- Cost sensitivity and lack of economic confidence are also playing a role in the lower-than-average task completion scores for Retail and Consumer Electronics. These will be the bellwethers to watch in the lead-up to the holiday season. Last week, the NRF forecasted that 2008 holiday season sales would rise 2.2%, far below the 10-year average lift of 4.4%. The challenges facing multi-channel and online retailers will only be exacerbated by low task completion.
- The Web Analytics industry clocked in with the fourth lowest score. C’mon guys and gals, we play in traffic for a living and are swimming in metrics...we’re supposed to know what makes our visitors tick. We can do better than this!

So, how does your site stack up against your industry? Let us know by commenting on the blog or posting your stories in the 4Q Community Forum. If you aren't measuring task completion, then sign up now for 4Q at www.4qsurvey.com. This metric is a crucial measurement and beginning to play an increasingly important role in website optimization. It cost you nothing to capture. Bigger question..what does it cost you not to?

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