ABB needed to know more about its visitors’ experience and how it met their expectations. But it also gained a key building block for its continuous improvement programme when is began using Bowen Craggs’ visitor research dashboard.

1. Case study ABB
ABB had become frustrated with the limitations of its web analytics data as a means of
driving an improvement programme for its corporate and country web estate. The Bowen
Craggs survey service appealed as a provider of more practical insight that would
stimulate stakeholder engagement within the company through greater understanding of
site visitors’ needs and how to satisfy them.
The service
Bowen Craggs survey
service and dashboard
The client
ABB, global engineering
group
ABB had no shortage of web analytics data about visitors to
abb.com and its local network of sites. But the more it gathered,
the more it felt the limitations of what the data could tell it
about those visitors and how well the sites were serving them.
It knew, For example, how many visitors there were but not who
they were. The best it could do was make assumptions – such as
most visitors to the careers pages were probably jobseekers. As
to why they were coming to the site, what they were coming
there for and whether if they left quickly it was because they
achieved what they wanted or were frustrated in their attempt,
no one could say with any great confidence based on the data.
At this stage the company decided it needed to challenge its
assumptions – which hadn’t been seriously revisited in several
years – by looking beyond the web analytics data. It chose to
implement Bowen Craggs’ proprietary web-based dashboard to
generate and interpret visitor feedback. The dashboard service,
which was developed and refined with users over two years,
uses a simple continuous online survey to capture visitor
experience and turn it into management information that
becomes the foundation for ongoing improvement. One of the
strengths that most appealed to ABB was the exceptionally high
survey completion rate generated by the service – typically
about 80 per cent compared with 50 per cent or lower from
other providers.
As the project progressed it became clear to ABB that its
assumptions about its visitor profile had been broadly correct.
But it was also evident that a richer seam of insight was being
tapped: the comments drawn from visitors were providing high-
grade insights into the quality of their visits – did they achieve
what they wanted to? If not why not? Issues were coming to
the surface and demanding attention with an authority – the
voice of the customer – that spoke more directly to web
managers that standard analytics data ever could.
To help managers interpret the survey data and dashboard
indicators, Bowen Craggs provides quarterly webinar briefings
and reports. “We can be too close to what we do, so the third-
party view is essential and saves us time,” says Mark Seall, head
of global web managementdigital communications . The survey
information was also a “key building block” in the recent
redesign of the dotcom site.
© 2013 Bowen Craggs & Co Limited Case study ABB 1

2. Case study ABB
Trend data generated by
the continuous running
of the survey is proving
increasingly valuable to
the quality improvement
cycle.
Equally valuable for the improvement strategy has been the
extra muscle the information gives the web team – particularly
segmentation by visitor group – in its dealings with internal
stakeholders. “It helps us make our agenda more credible when
pushing our changes,” Mr Seall says.
The ability of the dashboard to secure ‘buy in’ was demonstrated
powerfully when the survey was rolled out to the China country
site to try to understand better the visitor traffic from this
increasingly important market. The initial scepticism of local
managers was converted into full-on enthusiasm by the scale as
well as the quality of the response from visitors. They now
routinely distribute insights from the survey to the local content
owners to drive continuous improvement
Careful deployment (knowing when and where to trigger the
survey) and a deliberately restricted range of questions are
critical elements in achieving high participation rates and
delivering the results to win over managers – even those jaded
by past survey experiences.
With the project now in its second year other strengths of the
dashboard approach are coming to the fore. Trend data
generated by the continuous running of the survey is proving
increasingly valuable to the quality improvement cycle. And the
benchmarking element provided by the pooling of anonymised
data among Bowen Craggs’ subscriber companies helps keep
problems and progress in perspective.
Since ABB renewed its subscription to the service it has begun
work with Bowen Craggs to expand the survey to cover the
company’s Facebook page and longer term is looking to include
its mobile site as well.
© 2013 Bowen Craggs & Co Limited Case study ABB 2