Car shoppers seek ease of use from auto Web sites
When researching cars online, a consumer’s Web experience factors into the overall perception of the car brand. In addition to providing new-vehicle shoppers with adequate information that is easy to access, the most useful automotive brand Web sites must also provide a consistently satisfying experience across all points of entry, including the home page and model-level pages, according to the 2011 Manufacturer Web site Evaluation Study - Wave 1 from Westlake Village, Calif., research company J.D. Power and Associates. The study measured the usefulness of automotive manufacturer Web sites during the new-vehicle shopping process by examining four measures: speed, appearance, navigation and information/content.
Overall, users who accessed a Web site through a model page were significantly more satisfied with their experience than those who entered the Web site through the home page. Web sites that achieved the highest levels of overall satisfaction and usability performed consistently well among both sets of shoppers.
“Certain brands that perform consistently well among users who enter at the home page and through model pages - such as MINI and Porsche - have navigation schemes that remain the same throughout the Web site,” says Arianne Walker, director, marketing and media research, J.D. Power and Associates. “This makes it possible for Web site users to access relevant information from anywhere on the site. This certainly reinforces the fact that automotive brand Web sites need to be intuitive and should reduce the number of clicks it takes for the user to get to their desired destination.”
In contrast, for some of the lowest-performing Web sites, there were significant gaps in satisfaction between users who entered the site through the home page and those who gained entry through a model page.
“Web sites that are ranked as being the least useful or satisfying tend to have home pages that offer very little model-level information, if any, as well as cumbersome or inconsistent navigation,” says Walker.
Honda ranked highest with a score of 836 on a 1,000-point scale and performed particularly well in the information/content, navigation and speed measures. Rounding out the top five automotive Web sites were Mazda (818), MINI (815), Porsche (814) and Acura (813). The most improved brands in 2011 included Cadillac (which improved by 15 rank positions) and Porsche (which improved by 14 rank positions).
According to Walker, much of Cadillac’s improvement in 2011 came from improved navigation, which accompanied image and branding updates that were initiated early in 2010. Porsche’s improvement from 2010 was primarily due to changes in navigation and design that provide users with clearer, more readable page layouts. For more information visit www.jdpower.com.
Physicians and pharma companies struggle in communicating with Hispanic population
Poor communication with Hispanic patients could be adversely affecting the quality of care for the largest minority group in the U.S., according to a study from The Jeffrey Group, a Miami communications agency, and KCI Partners, a Weston, Fla., research firm. The study focused on uncovering barriers in Hispanics’ receiving adequate treatment and measuring the effectiveness of communication vehicles in educating Hispanic patients about their health.
Among the obstacles physicians encountered in effectively treating Hispanic patients, 24 percent of physicians cited poor patient understanding of disease severity as almost always a barrier to treatment and 21 percent cited it as frequently a barrier. Other factors cited by physicians as almost always being a barrier to treatment were preconceived notions/myths (23 percent) and conflicting advice about treatment from family members (21 percent).
Despite these barriers, nearly 50 percent of respondents cited that community organizations, physicians, physician assistants and nurses are among those doing the most effective job at communicating about health care issues with Hispanic patients. On the other hand, most physicians think that pharmaceutical companies don’t fully understand multicultural patient needs and therefore they don’t communicate well with them. In fact, only 12 percent reported that pharmaceutical companies understand the health care needs of Hispanic patients very well. Even fewer physicians (7 percent) indicated that pharmaceutical companies are doing an adequate job in communicating with Hispanics about solutions to their health care needs.
Most physicians agree that one-on-one time with staff and printed educational materials in Spanish are the most important and effective ways to communicate with these patients. Furthermore, physicians agree that media plays a key role in informing patients. Seventy-one percent of physicians cited that, outside of their offices, television stories are a very or extremely effective communication vehicle to help educate these patients. For more information visit www.kcipartners.com.
IT pros prefer forums over Facebook as a resource
Social media has been all the rage in pop culture and personal networking but it has yet to catch on in certain tech-savvy circles. Three-quarters of IT professionals still turn to non-social sources like IT trade publications, IT vendor Web sites and specialized IT online user forums/communities when looking for work-related information, according to a study from Boston research company Chadwick Martin Bailey.
For IT professionals, broader social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are currently much less commonly used for discovering new products or brands, purchase evaluation or post-sales support within the technology space. When it comes to using social media as a resource, 73 percent go to online communities and IT online forums. Sites like LinkedIn (45 percent), Facebook (28 percent) and Twitter (19 percent) ranked lower on the list of information resources IT professionals turn to.
Specialized online IT communities are the most used and most trusted social forum for the exchange of product recommendations and troubleshooting advice. But many key conversations among IT professionals who know each other happen through non-social (i.e., private one-to-one) communications (e.g., corporate e-mail, Web e-mail, phone calls, face-to-face conversations, meetings at in-person trade shows, etc.).
Additionally, the study found that when IT professionals use social media, they are much more likely to be active participants than the general consumer online population, which skews more toward lurkers. For example, of the 73 percent of IT professionals who use online user forums/communities as an information resource, 60 percent also actively participate in or contribute to these types of sites. For those that who look at online reviews (61 percent), 40 percent of those people also participate by posting reviews online. For more information visit www.cmbinfo.com.
Americans gladly take the good with the bad in social media
Social media has opened the door to numerous ways for people to interact with others, customize their online experiences and receive benefits from their activity therein, but according to a study from Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive, it isn’t all fun and games. Along with perks like great product recommendations and new-employment leads come offensive posts or harsh consequences from sharing TMI.
Two in five Americans say that they have received a good suggestion for something to try as a result of their use of social media; 15 percent say they have made a connection regarding a job opportunity; and one in 10 say they have found a new apartment or house through their social media use.
While a majority of U.S. adults are using social media (65 percent) and a similar number say they have received a positive benefit from its use, adoption is not consistent across the board. Rather, younger Americans claim positive benefits as a result of their social media use much more often than older adults. For example, a majority of echo Boomers (those ages 18-33) say they have received a positive suggestion for something to try from their activity on social media (59 percent), compared to 44 percent of generation Xers (those ages 34-45); one-third of Baby Boomers (those ages 46-64); and just one in five matures (those ages 65+).
Similar numbers say they have suffered negative consequences from this activity, such as the 43 percent of social media users who say they have been offended by posts, comments or pictures they’ve seen and the 26 percent who say that unintended persons have viewed links or comments they’ve posted. Fewer social media users say they have suffered the more serious consequences of getting in trouble with school or work or losing a potential job opportunity because of comments or pictures they posted online (7 percent for both). Despite younger Americans receiving benefits from social media use more often than older adults, younger Americans also suffer the consequences of social media use at a greater rate.
When social media users were asked if potentially negative experiences can be prevented through the use of privacy settings, over three-quarters agreed that they can be, with 28 percent strongly agreeing. In addition, 71 percent of social media users are confident that their own privacy settings operate in the way they intend, but only 18 percent say they are very confident. While a quarter of social media users are not confident in their privacy settings (25 percent), it seems that almost all social media users are at least trying to use these options for security assurance - only 5 percent of social media users say they do not use any privacy settings at all. Similar to the other areas of social media explored, younger adults who use social media feel more strongly both that privacy settings can prevent negative consequences (82 percent of echo Boomers say this, compared to 70 percent of matures) and that they are confident in their own privacy settings (78 percent of echo Boomers, compared to 61 percent of Baby Boomers). For more information visit www.harrisinteractive.com.
Exploring how kids get clean
The standard bathtub in most American homes is 30x60 inches. To many adults, that’s a tight squeeze to fit into comfortably and relax, but to a child it’s a colossal, bubble-filled wonderland of adventures waiting to happen - at least until they switch from baths to showers. Interested in learning a bit more about the habits surrounding this water playland for the pint-sized set, Moen Incorporated, Olmsted, Ohio, queried both parents and their kids about children’s bathing habits, including questions about how often they bathe, for how long and with whom.
On the bath-versus-shower topic, many children take both baths and showers. However, not surprisingly, according to adults, a bubble bath ranks highest with the younger set: 85 percent of 6-to-8-year-olds take baths versus 77 percent who take showers. Nearly all tweens take showers rather than baths: 97 percent of 12-to-14-year-olds take showers versus 55 percent who take baths.
Ironically, when children were asked whether they take baths or showers, the results differed significantly. Fifty-five percent of children ages 6-8 said they took baths (versus adults, who said their children took baths 85 percent of the time) - a 30 percent difference in responses. Seventy-one percent of tweens said they took showers (versus adults, who said their tweens took showers 97 percent of the time) - again a nearly 30 percent difference between children’s responses and adults’.
When asked how often their children bathe or shower, parents stated that their children (particularly those in the 12-18 age group) bathe or shower every day. Children and parents agree - children are four times more likely to take a bath in the evening than in the morning. They also agree that more than half of the showers taken by children in a week occur in the evening.
While most adults prefer to bathe solo, three in 10 parents report bathing children together. Those who bathe multiple children would stop doing so for boys and girls together at around five years old; and for siblings of the same sex at approximately seven years old. Most young children are allowed to bathe or shower unsupervised at around seven years old. Seven in 10 adults with a child 6-8 years old report that their child bathes or showers unsupervised.
Some unexpected finds? Children spend about 23-25 minutes lathering up and playing in the bath versus 16 minutes in the shower. (A previous study by Moen found that adults spend an average of 13 minutes in the shower.) Also, one in five children report taking baths/showers away from home, averaging nearly three per week. The notion is that many of these children are in middle- or high-school and they likely shower before/after sports and after-school activities. For more information visit www.moen.com.
Mobile phones not replacing pure navigation devices anytime soon
Mobile phones with sophisticated navigation features are becoming increasingly available but it seems that their presence in the portable navigation device market is as a supplement to - instead of replacement for - devices designed solely for navigation purposes. Consumers in Germany, France and the U.K. don’t see them as wholly interchangeable and find each useful in its own right, according to data from Nuremberg, Germany, research company GfK Retail and Technology.
Whether strolling in an unfamiliar part of town or cruising across the continent, consumers tend to choose a navigation device best suited for the task at hand rather than consistently favoring one over the other. This suggests that there will be room for both mobile phones and pure navigation devices to maintain their place in the market in the future.
Pure navigation devices, which include portable products and devices that are permanently integrated into a vehicle, score points with the size of the screen and the variety of different map formats. Consequently, 89 percent of respondents in the three countries surveyed clearly prefer these types of device to mobile phones for car journeys. In fact, almost 70 percent of those who currently use only a mobile phone navigation system would prefer to use a portable or permanently integrated navigation system in the car. Respondents believe that pure navigation devices meet their requirements significantly better than mobile phones, particularly for longer journeys at the weekend or on vacation. Just under 80 percent declare themselves satisfied with portable or in-built devices for vacation trips, whereas only 66 percent say the same for mobile phones.
However, navigation is not limited to cars. For example, electronic orientation aids are becoming increasingly popular as city guides or location finders. Around 70 percent of all respondents would prefer to use portable navigation solutions via their mobile phones as pedestrians, and almost 60 percent of those who currently only use a portable navigation device would prefer to be guided by a mobile phone with a navigation feature when on foot. For more information visit www.gfk.com.
Americans consider health and quality when dining out, not calories
Americans are looking for more healthful options at restaurants and other food-service outlets but define healthy eating based on quality features rather than fewer calories, according to a report from The NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., research company.
A significant share of food-service traffic is driven by healthy eating behaviors and one of the top motivations for more healthful eating is to feel healthier. The feature most important to consumers seeking healthy menu options is quality, such as fresh, natural and nutritious ingredients. Fewer calories were among the least important features.
In addition to defining healthful eating, the report also addressed consumer attitudes about the importance of the taste. Consumers place a high importance on taste regardless if they are eating healthfully or not and some consumers equate healthier foods as not being as tasty. The majority of consumers expect to pay the same for healthier foods as those considered less healthy. For more information visit www.npd.com.