Evaluating a New Service or Product: Setting up a website - Essay Example

Evaluating a New Service or Product: Setting up a website William L. Holdings, Jr. is a young real e agent who has just inherited his father's business. His father has built Lawrence Holdings Associates and has now decided to retire. His son has ambitious plans to build office complexes in Dubai, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Bangkok. He has finalized on the plans and realizes that a strong web presence for his company will give the added impetus to improve his business. Hence he hires the necessary staff to take care of his company's website. Having designed the website he wants positive feedback about his website. In this scenario, he also asks his staff to develop the necessary survey questionnaire. His staff provide him with the necessary analysis and feedback. He decides on the content in his website. His education and memberships in prestigious real estate institutions take him to his destination. Introduction Lawrence Holdings Associates (LHA) has been in the business of real estate for the past 40 years. Over the years they have built a reputation of building quality residential buildings in and around the city of Nashville, Tennessee. The present CEO of the company, William L. Holdings Jr., (WLH) has just taken over the control of the company from his father who had run the company for the better part of his able life. Holdings Sr. has decided to retire from active service and wants to spend the rest of his life travelling throughout the world. Holdings Jr., armed with a Harvard MBA, has been with his father for the past 6 years and with the exit of Holdings Sr. he has plans of entering into the lucrative business of building office spaces for huge multinational companies. His market surveys suggest that he build in 4-5 cities in Asia and the Middle East. He has plans to build office complexes in Dubai, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Bangkok. His father has over the years groomed a group of executives who are very knowledgeable in this field and professional in their approach. He and his team decide that a lot of things have to be changed for an international outlook. This is when his team decides to completely revamp their company's website. The purpose of this write-up is on how he and his team evaluate the importance of a corporate website and go about setting up one. From now on we will be hypothetically setting up a website for Lawrence Holdings Associates (LHA). Setting up an effective website To setup a website for showcasing LHA, WLH considered a lot of things. He ensured that he had the best technical staff and he hired experts who were excellent in communication and could manage the relevant software and hardware. The purpose of setting up this website was very crucial for LHA and the website of a LHA reflected the various facets it was willing to show. The website, it was decided, should reflect the various strategies involved in marketing, branding, information sharing, mobilizing resources, public relations and knowledge sharing. WLH personally ensured that the website of LHA should always be very clear. For, he realized that the website is not just a technical project and hence care was taken in designing the content and the layout. Research design and methodology Having decided to setup a website it was more important for WLH laid a lot of emphasis on the focus and scope of the website. Next he wanted to promote the website and then to monitor and evaluate the website. For a company like LHA it is imperative the target audience got the right information and at the right time for the right price. So he devised a methodology whereby he could decide on his future course. He wanted to ask a closed community about the usefulness of his website before he went in for the actual marketing. He began a process of surveying the usefulness of his website identifying people who could be surveyed. Then he had to draft the questionnaire and do the actual survey. Finally he had to analyze and interpret the data collected. 1) Identifying the people to be surveyed: He had to decide on the potential people for identifying such people who represent a very small fraction of the general public. For this he tried to get in touch with peoples who were knowledgeable about real estate and were also web savvy. Offering an incentive or writing to them often (if they had not responded for the first time) or writing short letters persuading them to view the website and its contents. He had given three months for the survey to be over. This was because he was not in town and was busy travelling to the above mentioned 5 cities. 2) Designing the Questionnaire: The question for the questionnaire should be neutrally worded and should have both open and closed questions. 1 The question you would want to ask would be different from what is typically given on the internet and hence care should be taken to design them. WLH had enlisted the job to his staff. 3) Administering the survey: This is fairly simple. You either send short, well designed questionnaires by email to the target audience or use some of the companies specializing in this area. 2 But the hard parts of this exercise to get people respond to the questions. This is easier said than done and it could be very time consuming. His staff administered the survey and they did a very god job. 4) Analyzing and interpreting the surveys: If the results were got by the online surveys, then the job is fairly simple because the results so got would be in a very user-friendly way. You can start using them immediately. On the contrary if one is to key-in the data manually then it would take some time and effort. One thing to be remembered is that the results so got will not be accurate for one need not feel bad about this because the ideas got is to improve the website and neither final judgments nor will it affect the business in any way. His staff gave WLH all the information he wanted and supposed to know, since WLH was a net savvy man. Expected Results and Analysis WLH to his pleasant surprise realized that a lot of people had responded to his questionnaire. He had sent his questionnaire to around 5,000 people and more than 2,700 had responded. Since he had entrusted the job to his staff, the results he got were very comprehensible. In fact he had two types of results. The one was from the questionnaire and other from the visitor statistics to his website (Ricca & Tonella, 2000; Sterne, 2002). Both were analyzed by his staff and given to him. Some of the analyzed questions are given below: Q1. How did you first learn about Lawrence Holdings Associates Answer Options Response Percent Response Count Took someone else's survey 40.00% 40 Banner Advertisement 5.00% 5 Search Engine 11.00% 11 Referral/Link from another site 8.00% 8 Magazine/Print Advertisement 6.00% 6 Other (please specify) 30.00% 30 answered question 100 skipped question 0 Q2. Where are you located Answer Options Response Percent Response Count United States 75.00% 57 Other Country 25.00% 19 answered question 76 skipped question 24 The company had excluded web robots and crawlers form the visits and also visits from the company staff were not taken into account. His staff also provided LHA the results of the WebStats and the results are displayed below: 3 Conclusions and Recommendations The analysis gives WLH a clear picture of what to do. He has visitors from a lot of countries. From the feedback WLH has got, he has decided that he use Flash content and non-Flash content in his website. If only he can design his website and incorporate information like IDX4 then his business will improve. One thing he has understood very well is that a good web presence will enhance his business prospects. Having got a certificate from Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM: www.irem.org) he is also a Certified Property Manager of IREM. This certification will eventually give him the momentum to leap into the big league. Having put his portfolio online his only aim should be to go ahead with his real estate plans in the Asian countries. References Ricca, F., & Tonella, P. (2000). Web site analysis: Structure and evolution, 16th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'00), p. 76. Sterne, J. (2002). Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More