Shoddy work still dominates in the world of corporate websites, so here's our list of the top errors to avoic
OK, so attacking IR websites is like shooting fish in a barrel. The following observations may look like cheap shots; unfortunately, however, shoddy work still dominates in the world of corporate websites. The best sites are far better than they used to be, but it gets really murky when you get into the ranks of smaller, under-budgeted or understaffed companies.
I used to provide counsel to major companies on website best practice, so I know some of what is happening on these sites is understandable. Still, it is never forgivable: IROs are in the communications business, after all. Here are some examples of errors I found during a random internet surf. Avoid them if you can.
Updating
Nothing says ‘I don’t care’ more clearly than a stale piece of information. After all these years, it is remarkable how many communicators forget such a simple rule.
Just to begin: Altria on April 14 was still carrying a headline saying the ‘anticipated’ dividend was likely on April 10.
Overall, United Technologies Corporation (UTC) is up to date. The IR page on April 14, however, gave a stock price dated April 11. Hitting ‘refresh’ fixed the problem, but why should a visitor know that little trick? And as I had never visited this page before, this was not a cache problem with my computer, as can happen. It was, well, something wrong.
Fannie Mae’s calendar listed just one event in April: the monthly summary. There was no date, just ‘April’. Checking a little deeper I discovered that Fannie Mae appears to be slipping with its monthly report; the last one available is for January.
Consistency
I hate to pick on UTC, but, attracted by some very nice animation about a new jet engine produced by one of its businesses, Pratt & Whitney (P&W), I looked at UTC’s site in more detail. One animated display stated: ‘Every 1.2 seconds... aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney engines take off.’ Meanwhile, over on the P&W website under ‘Products’, the message is ‘every five seconds a Pratt & Whitneypowered aircraft takes off.’ Credibility, trust and precision engineering…?
Working for all audiences
A listed company has more than just customers to be concerned about. The media, investors, regulators and employees all matter, and that’s quite a long list. The ideal home page will give all comers an equal shot at getting to their area of interest quickly.
Home pages are the sites of turf battles, however, and marketing and sales often win out – even if the stock is in big trouble.
Like a number of other retail-oriented companies, such as Staples, Dell and Apple, Home Depot forces you to scroll to the bottom of a very long page to find company information, including investor relations details. Not too user-friendly for the investor, shareholder, employee, supplier or regulator.
Best practices would also dictate a range of useful navigation options, including an easily accessible search capability. Home Depot seems concerned only that you are able to shop online, and as ‘investor relations’ doesn’t have a stock-keeping unit, here is what you get when you type the term into the Home Depot search box: ‘Sorry, we could not find any matches for ‘investor relations’. Please check your spelling or search for a different keyword.’
Out to lunch
CBS has a category choice in the table of contents for its IR section labeled ‘Presentations’. What you find there is a blank page with that same heading. There is no message indicating something might normally be found there, and there has clearly been no decision as to whether this page has been deliberately abandoned. If it has been, it should be removed by that individual every company needs to have: someone responsible for website content.
El Paso likewise had no events scheduled, but the events page at least stated this to be the case. That’s OK given that few people have the next quarter on their calendar. The company’s efforts to provide access, however, had me scratching my head. On the ‘Past events’ list the first item read: ‘This webcast will be passwordprotected. Please note that the user name and password below are case-sensitive. Username: raymondjames. Password: invest2008.’ The key is under the doormat, dear…
Being available
Not talking to shareholders seems an odd way to relate to them. While most major companies provide telephone numbers on the IR sections of their websites and many give the names of the IR people to talk to, not all do.
Altria sends a message that it really does not want to serve you personally. There is no name listed as an IR contact, no phone number or direct email. A form ensures you are clinically separated from the communicators until they decide you are worthy; fill out a form and they’ll get back to you. That’s the directive even to those who identify themselves as analysts or institutions. It doesn’t take a lot of spadework to find the Altria IR contacts by digging up a financial news release and scrolling to the bottom, but forcing the visiting shareholder off on a hunt is somewhat shy of best practice communications.
At JPMorgan Chase you will have to dig down several layers – all the way to the FAQs, if you have the patience – before you find a phone number for the IR folks.
When the spell-checker doesn’t help
Ford has a fine IR site, but its table of contents includes the following: ‘Shareholder services contract’. That should, of course, be ‘contact’. Yes, I’m picky.
As for News Corp, the IR website is also adequate in every structural way. Yet here, where one would think there are some extra editors around, one can read: ‘Inquiries regarding lost certificates, change of address and other shareholder matters should be directed to the share registers.’ The proper appellation for the contacts is, of course, ‘registrars’.
It won’t take you long to find your own examples; there are plenty out there.
Just so we all understand
News Corp’s IR website lists, among other standard offerings, ‘Analysts’, ‘Dividends’ and ‘Calendar’. The first two contain exactly what one expects; the latter, however, consists of major movie opening dates. Hmm.
PepsiCo has a minimalist approach to its IR section, but covers the basics. It has a curve ball up its sleeve, however, with the offering for visitors to view the annual report. Clicking there immediately launches a 4MB download of a PDF document. Whoah! That is a lot of my memory they’re grabbing, and who says I like PDFs anyway? Maybe I prefer to read it in good old HTML, or even get a hard copy.
Over-designing
There are plenty of ways to overdo things. For years it was Flash on the splash page, greeting the user with uncontrollable animation. This has been pretty well done away with, at least on bigger company sites, because most designers know it’s awful and irritating. It still turns up occasionally, however: Disney’s site grabs control and starts a video with sound whether you want it to or not.
Animation is just not welcomed by a busy researcher or investor. There remain plenty of medium-sized and small firms that think they are enhancing the visitor’s experience somehow with elaborate visuals, but they are mostly wrong. That said, one artful solution can be found on the Time Warner home page, which overlays well-built standard navigation on an animated page – the best of both worlds for an entertainment and information company.
Over-designing tends to happen when web builders reach for the sky. Microsoft has done it with the latest version of its home page; structurally it works, but the color combination makes text so hard to read that the site caught the attention of Webpagesthatsuck.com, a long-time usability critic that has put Microsoft among the top 10 bad websites of 2007.
