Best And Worst Of Financial Services Brand Building Web Sites, 2009

How good is the overall experience offered by leading financial services brands' Web sites in 2009? To find out, Forrester graded the sites of 16 top financial services brands using Forrester's Web Site Brand Review methodology. Our tests measure how well top sites cater to user needs (Brand Action) and how well they infuse their Brand Image into the Web experience. We found that four companies' sites differentiate themselves in both these dimensions: Discover, Progressive Casualty Insurance, Vanguard, and Wells Fargo. Unfortunately, we also found many problems on the sites we reviewed. Common Brand Action problems included poor text legibility, confusing category names, and missing or buried functionality. On the Brand Image side, sites were guilty of using fonts that weren't consistent with other channels, poor production values, and lack of functionality to support brand positioning. To improve the online brand experience, financial services firms should map clearly defined brand attributes to user goals and ensure that brand comes through the entire site experience.