Research round-up: 8th March 2010

Northern Ireland ‘unhappiest broadband region in UK

People in Northern Ireland are the UK’s least satisfied broadband users, according to new data revealed by Top 10 Broadband. The study, based on over 180,000 unique satisfaction ratings on its website, found that nearly one in five people (18%) in Northern Ireland think their broadband service is “bad” or “terrible”.
In comparison, North West England was the happiest region, with 60% of people there describing their broadband service as “good” or “great.”The area with the lowest level of dissatisfaction was East Anglia, where only 12% of people complained their broadband was not up to scratch.
Nationally the average figure for broadband satisfaction was 57%, with 14% saying they were dissatisfied.
Full results:

First figure= Region Percentage of people who said they were satisfied with their broadband

Second Figure = Percentage of people who said they were not satisfied with their broadband

1.       North West -60 -13

2.       North East - 58 – 14

3.       West Midlands - 58 – 13

4.       London - 57 – 15

5.       South East - 57 – 15

6.       Yorkshire & Humberside - 57 – 14

7.       Scotland - 56 – 14

8.       Wales - 56 – 15

9.       South West - 56 – 15

10.    East Anglia - 56 – 12

11.    East Midlands - 55 – 14

12.    Northern Ireland - 54 – 18

13.     

Source: http://top10.com/broadband

Report: Five year forecast for Smartphones

Against the odds, the smartphone market has achieved growth during the turbulent economic slowdown of 2008-2009. While worldwide handset shipments have shrunk during this period, smartphone shipments have shown growth, driven primarily by the demand in the developed markets of North America and Europe. Smartphones now account for 13.8 percent of total worldwide handset shipments during 2009, and this figure looks set to grow to 24.9 percent by end-2014.

Key features of this report include:

-          Full 5-year market forecasts for overall handset market and for smartphone market

-          Analyze app store growth

-          Understand the major vendors and their market strengths and weaknesses

-          Study BlackBerry and iPhone sales growth

-          Analyze vendor market share by region

-          Explore opportunities in this growing market

-          Understand shifting vendor fortunes – look at market share of players rising and in decline

-          Study smartphone shipments by region and by vendor

-          Look at Operating System market share, by major OS and by region

You can download a brochure for this report at http://www.portioresearch.com/Smartphone_brochure_Nov09.pdf

See full detailed Table of Contents, including List of Figures and List of Tables at http://www.portioresearch.com/SPF%202010%20TOC%20DOC.pdf

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130 million enterprise users in the mobile cloud by 2014

As collaborative applications become ever more important for enterprise, a new report from Juniper Research has found that the number of enterprise customers using mobile cloud-based applications will rise to more than 130 million by 2014, facilitated by platform as a service (PaaS) deployments from key players such as Google and Microsoft.

The report found that the market for connected enterprise apps had benefitted from the success of Apple’s iPhone and App Store. It said that this was reflected both by a marked increase in both the number of enterprise apps available to end-users and also in the fact that such apps were themselves becoming far more attractive given the wide-ranging enhancements to smartphone user interfaces in the wake of the iPhone launch.

Furthermore, Juniper’s Mobile Cloud Applications research found that as cloud providers were increasingly opening up their APIs for application providers seeking to develop browser-based or thin client applications, this provided greater opportunity and incentive for developers seeking to reduce the costs associated by porting apps across multiple platforms.

Other findings from the Mobile Cloud Applications report include:

·         A cloud-based ecosystem offers storage and infrastructure suppliers the opportunity to enter the mobile arena by leverage their strengths in these areas to develop mobile-oriented cloud services

·         While enterprise applications will comprise the majority of cloud-based application revenues over the next five years, consumer applications including games, social networks and music services will together generate more than 25% of such revenues by 2014.

Juniper Research assesses the current and future status of mobile cloud based on interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in this bleeding edge industry.

Mobile Cloud whitepaper

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Poorly performing websites costing retailers up to £5.65 billion per year

Retailers are potentially losing up to £5.65 billion per year in lost sales, according to research released today by Hostway and Zeus Technology. This is because consumers are abandoning online transactions due to poorly performing websites.  The survey of 2,033 consumers highlighted that on average they had abandoned 5.5 online transactions per person over the last 12 months.  With recent figures showing that UK consumers were spending on average nearly £30 per transaction*, it is clear that retailers are still missing out on significant online revenues.

“Last year UK retail consumers spent £38bn online, yet it is clear that many people still have frustrations when shopping online,” commented Neil Barton, director at Hostway. “The research revealed that over two thirds of the respondents were wasting on average up to two and a half days a year reloading or waiting for web pages to load properly.  With many of today’s websites containing a lot more multimedia content, it is important that consumers receive a good online experience otherwise they may simply abandon their transaction.”

The research also revealed that a massive 82% of consumers said that if a business’ website performed badly it would dissuade them from buying goods from that organisation on the web or even in store.  This clearly demonstrates the importance of having a good online perception and the need for retailers to ensure their online customer experience is a positive one.

Many retailers have used online images and video to make their websites more attractive and interactive, however it has also led to them seeing more performance issues.  70% of the people surveyed said they were frustrated by how long it takes many websites to load images, and by the start stop nature of multimedia web content.  When asked what was the biggest user frustration when visiting websites, ‘web pages taking too long to load’ (46%) was cited at the biggest complaint.  This was followed by ‘online advertising’ (24%), ‘poor website navigation’ (16%) and ‘bad web links’ (13%).

Interestingly, the research also revealed that the majority of consumers believed customer loyalty should dictate the online experience they receive on certain websites. 71% stated that if they regularly purchase goods from a particular website they should be rewarded with a better web experience than those people who are just browsing.

“Online traffic will continue to grow, so it’s important that retailers ensure that their websites are scalable enough to cope with large visitor numbers and large amounts of multimedia content.  The latest traffic management solutions can help ensure that retailers are able to provide the best possible online experience, even allowing them to inspect and route traffic based on visitor type and profile.  All of which can improve the speed and responsiveness of their websites,” commented Graham Moore, e-retail specialist at Zeus Technology.

The online survey of 2,033 GB consumers was commissioned by Hostway and Zeus Technology and was conducted by independent research company TNS.

www.hostway.co.uk

www.zeus.com

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Premium rate phone charges: Complaints to industry regulator show sharp decline

Premium rate industry regulator PhonepayPlus has released its quarterly report on how well the interactive industry fared during the last three months of 2009.  The report highlights a sharp decline in the amount of complaints that the regulator processed during this time period:

Complaints to PhonepayPlus dropped by 60% for Q3 2009/10 compared to Q3 2008/9 (2,132 vs 5,442)

This gives a complaint ratio of one complaint per 100,000 premium rate transactions; down from three complaints per 100,000 in 2007.

Alongside other performance indicators such as the last quarter of 2009 being the highest ever in terms of volume for participation TV voting transactions and the continued growth of charity donations using mobile interactive platforms, the report clearly signals that there are signs of confidence returning to the interactive industry.

AIME and its members are currently driving several top level initiatives to improve trust, and encourage further mainstream applications.
www.aimelink.org

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Social media ‘becoming a core part of customer service’ 

Customer service is becoming social, according to a new guide - How to use social media to revolutionise your customer service – from specialist social media agency, Yomego. The guide is free to download from Yomego’s website: www.yomego.com/insight.   

Many brands now use social media as part of a customer engagement strategy: to listen and respond to feedback. Steve Richards, MD of Yomego and author of the guide, argues that the smart brands are creating customer communities as part of a customer service strategy as well as their marketing strategy.  

The guide gives examples of ways brands can use customer communities:

         To provide a way for customers to ‘self serve’ (find answers to common problems) or help each other, taking a burden off the customer service team (if a question can’t be answered straight away, a live chat function accessible from the site, or a ‘direct message’ function means the customer gets their problem resolved straight away

         To see what’s proving popular (and, of course, what’s not)

         To communicate a single message to multiple customers (a service upgrade, for example)

         To listen in on discussions about products and services and get valuable feedback

         To involve customers in product development (Richards cites Asda’s ‘Your Asda’ community initiatives and Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea)

         To create a culture of openness that customers reward with loyalty (but be ready to deal with criticism, too).

Richards gives advice to brands considering a customer community, under the following areas:

-          Creating an easy-to-use and well designed site

-          Resourcing a community

-          Taking on board (and not censoring) negative comments

-          Listening and responding quickly

-          Rewarding valuable contributors

-          How to react when you get it wrong

-          Being prepared for the long haul

-          Using the community in conjunction with other services

-          Integrating it to other social media tools

-          Tracking the impact of the community on your brand reputation

-          Personalising responses

-          Tools to consider on the site (such as chat/DM functions, FAQs, forums and incentive schemes)

download the guide

www.yomego.com/insight

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Healthcare mistrusts security of cloud technologies

Only 6.5% of healthcare workers indicate cloud storage is currently the destination media for their organization's archived data, according to new research from BridgeHead Software.  Further, only 33% noted their organization plans to adopt a cloud storage strategy for any data over the next 12-24 months.

The online survey, launched Feb. 9, was designed to assess healthcare's preparedness for the massive volume of data generated by the industry's escalating reliance upon information technology. Early findings specific to cloud storage were announced by BridgeHead at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference and exhibition, currently being held in Atlanta.

An overwhelming majority of respondents to date - more than 80% - reports that the most significant factor influencing decisions about utilizing cloud storage is concern about security and availability of data. Respondents also cited cost and a lack of conviction that cloud storage offers significant benefits when compared to local media.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2010-HDM-survey

http://www.bridgeheadsoftware.com.

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Lack of technology damages marketing industry

 Despite increased budgets, demand for personalisation is not being met and executives lack confidence on how to gauge marketing success, according to new research. The study, from marketing optimization firm  Coremetrics, reveals the alarming extent to which the marketing industry is struggling to evolve, due to the lack of adoption of technology.

“The Face of the New Marketer” finds that, while most marketers report they need to use online data to personalise their marketing efforts and deliver tailored offers to their customers, their current technology use does not support this goal. Furthermore, there is a marked discrepancy between marketers’ need to manage to metrics and their confidence in the accuracy of the data. “The Face of the New Marketer” study, conducted on Coremetrics’ behalf by Bloomberg BusinessWeek Research Services, polled 361 senior marketing executives in the UK and the US.

Three quarters of marketers report that using various online tools for personalisation is a priority and 81% claim that it’s very important for them to increase visitor value through compelling product and content offerings. Yet only half report they currently use online personalisation tools (51%), suggesting the information and data gathered through online marketing efforts is still not being used to its full potential.

While spending on online marketing efforts has increased, most marketers lack confidence that they are using the right metrics to gauge marketing success and value. When asked how they would evaluate marketing success at the end of 2009, nearly half (47%) said “meeting our key performance indicators.” However, well over half of marketers (62%) claim they are not confident they are tracking the right metrics for online marketing performance—a significant discrepancy. Additionally, there is a perceived lack of confidence in the accuracy of this online marketing data. Only 13% of executives are extremely confident the online data they receive from managers is accurate, while only 6% of managers share the same level of confidence about the data they are providing.

Other key findings in “The Face of the New Marketer” include:

-          The two top challenges facing marketers are:

-          Obtaining an integrated view of customers across online marketing touch points (45%)

-          Interpreting the resulting data (41%)

-          The three areas that have seen the biggest spending increase this year are:

-          Online marketing (69%)

-          Generating online business (56%)

-          Web 2.0 (55%)

Marketing has always been viewed as critical to the organization. Two-thirds of marketers (67%) indicated that marketing has always been viewed as critical in their organization—only 19% say that marketing is seen as discretionary.

The three most commonly used forms of online marketing are:

1.       Email marketing (87%)

2.       Display advertising (86%)

3.       Paid search (69%)

The three most commonly used marketing measurement tools are:

1.       Individual online marketing campaign performance (77%)

2.       Online customer behaviour—per visit/session (76%)

3.       Display advertising performance based on impressions (69%)

Collaboration is important and could be easier if barriers are removed. 97% of marketers say it is important for their organization to collaborate to better target customers. However, only about half indicate that this is an easy process.

The biggest barriers to collaboration are:

1.       Organizational structure (47%)

2.       Control issues (38%)

3.       Decision making procedures (33%)

4.       And poor communication (33%)

www.coremetricsBW.com

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UK SMEs missing out on the benefits offered by social media and mobile apps

The overwhelming majority of UK small and medium sized businesses are failing to exploit new ways to increase productivity and more effectively engage with customers, new research from business software and service provider Sage UK has revealed.

The Sage UK Omnibus surveyed 2,000 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from Sage’s 790,000 strong UK customer base in January 2010. It found that 8 out of 10 (82%) firms are missing sales and customer engagement opportunities by not using Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn for any aspect of their operations. Furthermore, seventy-seven percent of UK SMEs do not use any mobile tools other than email, despite the availability of hundreds of productivity enhancing ‘apps’.

Social media provides a new way for small businesses to ‘listen in’ to online conversations and gauge people’s perceptions, engage and educate existing or prospective customers and build an official online brand presence. Mobile applications also offer competitive advantage by providing business owners and employees with critical customer information and productivity tools anytime, anywhere.

Brendan Flattery, MD of Sage’s Small Business Division said, “Social media and mobile apps may not be relevant for all businesses, but for most they can provide real value. These technologies can help raise a small business’s profile, allow them to interact with their customers on a more personal level, improve collaboration between employees and enhance productivity. By embracing these new tools, businesses will be able to gain competitive advantage.”

The research also highlighted that the small businesses that do engage on social networks chose Facebook (32%) as their desired platform over LinkedIn (28%) and Twitter (19%). This suggests that small businesses see Facebook as the best way to connect with their customers.

To help small businesses tap into the benefits of social media, Sage has developed a White Paper called “Connecting with your customers; A guide to social media” which includes:

-          Using social media to gain insight to improve customer relations

-          Managing your reputation online

-          Driving traffic and improving Google rankings

-          Social Media and CRM software

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77% of marketers to use audience targeting in 2010

AudienceScience, a targeting technology company driving digital media success, announces the results of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AudienceScience on the current state of audience targeting. The overall findings indicate that audience targeting growth is on the rise as familiarity and confidence in the discipline increases, and that there has been a positive shift in marketers’ understanding about the impact of audience targeting on direct response and branding.

As recent as 2005, the phrase “audience targeting” had little to no recognition among marketers, and over the subsequent five years as the market has evolved, it has still faced challenges regarding the measurability of its impact on branding. Today, the results speak for themselves and marketers are gaining greater understanding of the synergy between audience targeting campaigns for both direct response and branding. That confidence is resulting in greater spend and overall growth of the market.

For this commissioned study, Forrester surveyed 156 display media marketers, representing a broad range of businesses with the results indicating that 77 percent of marketers surveyed currently use or plan to use audience targeting.  42 percent of marketers surveyed planning to begin or increase usage of audience targeting cited the ability to reach targeted consumers as a key driving factor in their decision making, and 32 percent cited the fact that they simply get better results than with other forms of targeting; other factors noted were scalability, cost savings, data quality and accuracy.

For most marketers surveyed, the value of targeted campaigns is tied directly to reaching financial goals, including ROI and campaign costs. According to Forrester’s Online Advertising And Classifieds Model; “US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 to 2014” (July 2009), projected spending on display advertising overall is expected to double from $8.4 billion in 2010 to close to $17 billion in 2014. A recent JP Morgan forecast corroborates this growth and notes that display advertising currently offers the greatest upside for marketers using targeting as U.S. consumers currently spend 38 percent of their media time online, while marketers are only spending eight percent of their marketing budgets to reach these audiences.

www.AudienceScience.com.

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Experian unveils UK’s most fashionable towns

Men from Wandsworth the best-dressed in the UK, while Richmond has the most fashionable women, according to new research.  Experian has identified Britain’s most fashionable towns and areas. Drawn from Experian’s Fashion Segments, which classifies every adult in the UK based on attitudes and behaviour towards fashion shopping, the research focuses on the four most fashion-conscious segments for women and men.

London’s ‘fashion triangle’ from Kensington to Richmond in the West and Wandsworth further East is home to the most fashion conscious men and women in the UK. Overall, 63% of Putney’s residents fall into the most fashion conscious segments of the UK, as do 24% of Richmond’s female residents and 51% of Wandsworth’s male residents.

Outside of London, Birmingham and Manchester are home to some of the UK’s most fashionable people, with Winchester and Maidenhead (13% each) featuring strongly for fashion conscious women and Glasgow (25%) and Manchester (24%) for fashionable men.

Female fashion categories

The Kings Road in Chelsea takes the top spot for Best Dressed Fashionistas, women with a strong sense of style and the money to spend on it, according to Experian’s analysis – enduring in its fashionable status since the 1960s with more than 5 per cent of women using their wealth to purchase high-end clothing. Richmond, however, is home to the UK’s Big Spenders, with an incredible one in five women (21%) falling into this category, which has the highest average spend per item.

According to Experian’s analysis, Birmingham is home to the UK’s best-dressed children. Central Birmingham, Gravelly Hill, Erdington and West Bromwich are all in the top five for the Kitted Out Kids category, with nearly one in ten women (9.59%) likely to spend as much on their children’s clothes as they do on their own, highlighting their fashion status and credentials through their children.

Hounslow has the highest single concentration of High Fashion For Less shoppers in the UK (3%) – women who are keen to follow the latest fashions, but at the right price.

Male fashion categories

In terms of the UK’s male population, Functional Fashion Seekers are most likely to be found in the East of London, where more than a third of those in Cheapside (31%) and more than a quarter of those in Stratford and Liverpool Street & Bishopsgate (25%) fall under the category for those who are very fashion conscious, but are not fashion victims. The men who are the highest fashion spenders, Dressed In The Best, are most likely to be found in London’s outskirts of Wandsworth, Putney and Hammersmith.

Central Manchester (6.5%) and Cardiff (5.2%), meanwhile come top for Budget Image - men that don’t have a lot of money to spend but take the way they look very seriously. Leicester however leads the way with Brand Boys, who spend their disposable income and time seeking out brand labels.

Experian’s Fashion Segments links qualitative information on fashion shopping motivations and attitudes with quantitative information on shopping behaviour and overall demographics to provide a unique insight into consumers within the fashion market. The Segments classify all adults into 20 female types and 15 male types, describing typical attitudes towards fashion and brands, and typical behaviour towards types of clothes purchased, stores visited and the value and purpose of shopping trips.

Most fashionable categories – UK hotspots

High Fashion for Less is a type for whom fashion is very important and who are very keen to be dressing in the latest trends. However they are restricted in choice by their level of income.

UK hotspots: Hounslow, Ilford, Slough, Harrow and Leicester

Kitted-out Kids consists of women who dress their children aspirationally as a statement of self-image.  They buy as many items of clothing for their children as they do for themselves.

UK hotspots: Birmingham Central, Birmingham Gravelly Hill, West Bromwich, Bradford and Birmingham Erdington

Best Dressed Fashionistas is a type with a strong sense of style and the money to spend on it. They come from wealthy families and often still live at home with parents.

UK hotspots: King’s Road Chelsea, Kensington, Putney, Queensway and Richmond

Big Spenders have the highest total spend on clothes of any female type. They buy a lot of clothes and they buy the best quality, resulting in a very high average spend per purchase. They are often traditional dressers preferring a classic or tailored look to high fashion.

UK hotspots: Richmond, Kingston, Barnet, High Wycombe and Epsom

Men – most fashionable categories:

Functional Fashion Seekers are young men who are very fashion-conscious, but not fashion victims — it is very important to them that they wear the right brands and have the right look.

UK hotspots: Cheapside, Stratford, Liverpool Street & Bishopsgate, Victoria Street and London West End

Budget Image do not have much income to spend on clothes but are conscious of the way they look. They try to buy clothes that are in fashion and will actively search out new trends.

UK hotspots: Hatfield, Manchester Central, Cardiff, Bournemouth Central and East Ham

Brand Boy is a type for whom brand and styling are extremely important in clothing. They have a reasonable disposable income as they are likely to still be living at home with their parents.  .

UK hotspots: Leicester, Bristol Broadmead, Harrow and Hounslow

Dressed in the Best have the highest spend of any male type but surprisingly make fewer than average purchases. Their high spend is a function of the fact that each item they buy is very expensive.

UK hotspots: Wandsworth, Clapham Junction, Putney, Liverpool Street & Bishopsgate, Cheapside and Hammersmith King Street

http://www.experianplc.com