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Locate Auto Insurance Quotes Online Easily With American Family; WebCriteria Rates Insurance Web Sites for Customer Experience

    PORTLAND, Ore.--April 16, 2001--WebCriteria, Inc., experts in customer experience management, today released benchmark data on applying for an auto insurance quote online.
    The American Family Insurance web site led the ranking by making it easiest for customers to enter and submit required information. Other sites ranked included Allstate, E-Insure, GEICO, ESPN, Insweb, National Merit, Progressive, Prudential, State Farm and Travelers Insurance.
    "According to a study conducted by IDC about 2 million Internet households have used or plan to use the Internet to research and apply for automobile insurance," said Alistair Williamson, CEO of WebCriteria. "Between the established insurers and the insurance portals, those households have immediate access to hundreds of quote applications. Insurers must make it easy and fast to apply on their site because their competitors are only a click away."
    The sites were ranked in order of the time and effort required to locate, complete and submit an auto insurance quote application according to WebCriteria's Task Analysis service. Customers on the American Family site could complete this task in thirteen steps, taking just more than four minutes. By contrast, the Allstate site requires seventeen pages and over eight minutes to accomplish the same task. See http://www.webcriteria.com/reports/insurance.cfm for complete details and graphs.
    WebCriteria analyzes key factors that impact the customer experience of visitors on a web site. These criteria are categorized into the "Time" and "Effort" components required to benchmark a specific "Task" against the competition. Tasks that users perceive as taking too much time and effort are frequently abandoned in favor of competitive sites that are easier to use. The less time and effort required for a task, the higher its Task Rating. See http://www.webcriteria.com/solutions/task/index.cfm for more information.

    About WebCriteria

    Based in Portland, Ore., WebCriteria (www.webcriteria.com) helps companies increase sales and customer retention to their web sites by providing answers on how to improve the customer experience. Through its innovative technology and expert analysis, WebCriteria objectively and consistently compares the experience of web site visits to corporate competitive sites and industry peers. Representative customers benefiting from WebCriteria's services include IBM, Verizon, Honda, Chase Manhattan, Marriott, US Bank and many web development agencies and consultancies, including Agency.com, Imagio, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. For more information contact WebCriteria at info@webcriteria.com or call 503/225-2991.

    Max and WebCriteria are trademarks of WebCriteria, Inc. All brands or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products and services of, their respective owners.