IBM Site Revamp Shows Design Priorities

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June 01, 2000 (7:05 PM EDT)

In a climate of diminishing tolerance for weak online customer service and unnavigable sites, IBM took no chances as it revamped its global e-commerce site.

The computing giant, which tallied $14.8 billion in Web sales last year, used extensive customer research to find out what turns customers off and what makes them come back. The result: design changes that just about any dot-com could heed.

Research revealed an important first step for the new site: reduce the number of clicks. User feedback told IBM (stock: IBM) that different levels of information on the same product sometimes were unnecessarily displayed on separate pages. Other products' pricing information wasn't directly linked to prices of similar products for comparison purposes. Rifling through the site for information was troublesome for a good number of customers.

"They've got to click down, then they've got to cut back," said Rory Read, IBM's vice president for enterprise Web management. "They get confused where they are, and they tend to lose interest."

The new ibm.com site, which was launched in five countries in late May, makes generous use of menus similar to thepull-downs in a Windows environment. More product data is available on single pages. And the search capability is based on keywords favored by site users, not Webmasters.

Almost 60 percent of consumers actively seek out e-commerce sites that provide the best customer service, according to consultancy Cyber Dialogue. IBM customers are no exception; they especially take a liking to live online assistance.

IBM bulked up the live interaction capabilities on the site's shopping portion, which the company integrated into its main site last week. The site uses both live text-based chat help and "call me" buttons that automatically prompt a call to the consumer from a customer support rep. That help is customized by the category of shopper IBM is dealing with.

Nearly 70 percent of shoppers on IBM's site abandon their shopping carts before completing their orders, on par with industry averages, the company said. Earlier live assistance elements at IBM sites had cut into the number of customers who ditch their selections before paying.

IBM's site also lets customers segment themselves into their appropriate group immediately after they hit the front page. "Resource" links to the side on the main page invite users based on who they are -- consumer, small business owner, or executive in a large business, for example -- rather than what they want.

Small and midsize businesses, for example, are more likely than huge corporations to buy an IBM subscription service that gives 100 employees instant e-mail and Web access. Such products are offered prominently only on the part of the site for the small-company customer base.

"It's a substantial base, and really you don't want to just blow it through the general public experience," Read said.

The international rollout of IBM's new site required the company to do research in many different countries.

Researchers came across significant differences in what users prefer and how they interpret site elements. Though major messages and the general arrangement of links are slated to be more or less uniform across the world, terminology and icons will vary. A button with a checkmark in the center was recognized in the United States as a "support" icon, but the rest of the world preferred a circle with a cross in it, Read said.

"It would be nave to suggest that you could design one standard experience for every geography," he said. "It just won't happen."

Every week, IBM introduces up to 10 changes to its Web properties' order management, order tracking personalization, and other functions. The company said it continually conducts offline focus groups, e-mail questionnaires, and on-site polls.