[May 03, 2012]

Travelocity and Thrifty Websites Rank Number One in Latest Study by Keynote of Rental Car Booking Websites - OTAs and Provider Sites Compared in Advance of Summer Travel Season

Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of http://www.keynote.com/ (Nasdaq:KEYN), today announced the results of a new study examining the business and technical effectiveness of rental car booking websites. In the 2012 Rental Car study Travelocity.com took first place for Overall Customer Experience, while in the Technical Quality portion of the study Thrifty.com scored first overall, placing first for both Reliability and Responsiveness (Speed). The entire study is available for immediate purchase. To request more information please visit: http://bit.ly/CarRentalStudy.

Winners of Keynote Competitive Research studies are invited to participate in the company's Online Excellence Program which recognizes the "best of the best" websites as ranked in the studies. The rankings are based on responses from real users, who were observed as they accomplished tasks on each of the sites studied, as well as real data collected through Keynote website monitoring to assess the technical quality of the sites. For each study, Keynote recognizes the companies with the overall top ranking, as well as those exhibiting excellence in specific categories.

For the 'Customer Experience' portion of the study, Keynote observed and conducted online interviews with 2,000 online adults as they interacted with the websites of a total of 10 leading rental car booking websites: Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Expedia (News - Alert), Hertz, Orbitz, Thrifty, and Travelocity. Each study participant had used the Web to research and/or book a rental car online and planned to do so again within the next 12 months.

For the 'Technical Quality' portion of the study, Keynote performed 6,000 total measurements for each site, for a total of 60,000 total measurements, from 12 locations in the U.S. The data was collected every day over a one month period during the websites' peak period (8:00 AM-Midnight, EST., Monday-Sunday).

Keynote Competitive Research produces leading industry research using the company's commercially available Web performance monitoring and real user experience testing products. Keynote regularly evaluates the current state of online customer experience, technical quality (responsiveness/reliability) and implementation of best practices on leading websites across a wide variety of vertical markets including financial services, automotive, media/entertainment, retail, travel and technology.

More Information about the Customer Experience Rankings for Rental Car Booking Websites

For the Customer Experience component of the study, Keynote sent 200 U.S. resident Internet users to each of the 10 rental car websites. The panelists were first asked to spend long enough on the site's home page to form an impression of the site and gain an understanding of its unique offerings. Next, panelists were asked to think of a trip they might take to a major city where they would rent a car, and choosing specific dates, use the site to find a rental car that would accommodate them and anyone they might typically travel with (e.g., family, business colleagues, etc.). Panelists were asked to look for a rental car that would best suit their needs -- including price, special options, and availability for specific dates. Once they found a rental car that fit all the proper criteria they were asked to write down the total cost. Next, they were asked to proceed through the process of rserving the vehicle, going as far as possible without actually completing the reservation, include anything else they might need (e.g., special options) and adding them to the reservation as well, making note of the final price quote. Finally, the panelists were asked to use the site to find the answer to a question or problem they may have had when finding, reserving, or renting a car, either during this evaluation or in the past. If they were unable to find the answer on the site, panelists were instructed to explore the options available for contacting customer service for additional assistance.

The study revealed that when tested by online users, Travelocity.com offers the strongest Overall Customer Experience, followed closely behind by Expedia.com which scored first for Brand Impact and Budget.com, which rated highest for Customer Satisfaction. Other key findings include:

• Five sites -- Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Budget, and Hertz -- comprised a clear top tier, providing the best customer experience for site visitors in 2012;
• Reservation Process, Price Satisfaction, Quality and Reputation, Design & Organization, Find Rental Car, Visual Appeal, Car Descriptions & Details, and Locate Help also continue to be key drivers for brand and conversion;
• Several sites experienced significant shifts in year-over-year performance:
  
  
  • Travelocity improved significantly for Overall Customer Experience, Conversion, Customer Satisfaction, Design & Organization, and Visual Appeal
  • Budget improved significantly for Overall Customer Experience, Customer Satisfaction, Quality & Reputation, Design & Organization, and Visual Appeal
  • Avis improved significantly for Overall Customer Experience, Conversion, Customer Satisfaction, Quality & Reputation, Design & Organization, and Visual Appeal

• Both Budget (tops for Customer Satisfaction) and Travelocity (tops for Overall Customer Experience) refreshed their Car Rental homepages in ways that led to greater user satisfaction.

"Almost all of the sites did well in creating a satisfying reservation process," said Chris Musto, general manager of the Keynote Competitive Research group at Keynote. "Where they tended to diverge was in customer support for questions or issues, price satisfaction and panelists' feelings after using the sites about the quality and reputation of the car rental agency or online travel agency they visited."

More Information about the Technical Quality Rankings in the U.S. Rental Car Booking Websites Study

In addition to evaluating customer experience with actual users, the Keynote study also examined two broad aspects of technical quality: responsiveness and reliability. Responsiveness comprises: high speed response, DSL (midband) response, response time consistency, geographic uniformity and load handling, while reliability is comprised of availability and outages. For the 'Technical Quality' portion of the study, using measurement computers located in 12 cities across the U.S., Keynote measured a typical transaction of searching for and reserving a rental car online. Each measured transaction began at the site's Home Page then followed the process of searching for and selecting a rental car, and ending at the reservation page that prompts the user to enter his/her personal information. Based on the thousands of transactions monitored over the course of the study, Thrifty's website ranked first in Overall Technical Quality.

In order to collect the Technical Quality data Keynote used its Transaction Perspective® product, the leading real browser-based service for measuring and monitoring website performance from the end user perspective. With Keynote Transaction Perspective the company examines website performance from multiple geographic locations by simulating users clicking through transactions on a website. Keynote collected approximately 6,000 data points that detailed each of the sites' technical performance in terms of page responsiveness and reliability.

The study is available for purchase from Keynote and comes with extensive analysis of brand impact, acquisition impact, reliability and responsiveness and the factors that drive sites' performance in these areas. Clients will receive an executive presentation, extensive back-up charts and illustrations, and online access to all clickstreams, verbatims, question responses and panel facts for all panelists at all sites for all tasks and can download and use this data in their own research. To inquire about a copy view: http://bit.ly/CarRentalStudy.

About Keynote Systems (News - Alert)

Keynote® Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ:KEYN) is the global leader in Internet and mobile cloud testing & monitoring. Keynote maintains the world's largest on-demand performance monitoring and testing infrastructure for Web and mobile sites comprised of over 4,000 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 275 locations around the world that enable companies to continuously improve the online and mobile experience. Known as 'The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote offers three market-leading product platforms:

Keynote Perspective® provides on-demand performance monitoring for enterprise Web and mobile sites including online portals, e-commerce sites and B2B sites. Over 2,000 customers rely on Keynote Perspective services to know precisely how their websites, content, and applications perform on actual browsers, networks, and mobile devices.

Keynote DeviceAnywhere™ is an enterprise-class, cloud-based, mobile application lifecycle management (ALM) testing & quality assurance platform. It is used by over 1,000 mobile developers and enterprises to deliver mobile applications, content and services faster while reducing downtime and testing costs.

Keynote SIGOS offers active end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) testing and monitoring solutions for mobile, fixed and VoIP communications. Its SITE and Global Roamer products are used by over 200 network operators, content providers, carriers and regulators in over 100 countries worldwide.

Keynote's 4,000 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies and include American Express, AT&T, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Google, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, T-Mobile and Vodafone (News - Alert). Keynote Systems is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at http://www.keynote.com/ or by phone in the U.S. at 1-800-KEYNOTE.

Keynote®, DataPulse®, CustomerScope®, Keynote CE Rankings®, Keynote Customer Experience Rankings®, Perspective®, Keynote Red Alert®, Keynote Traffic Perspective®, Keynote WebEffective®, The Internet Performance Authority®, MyKeynote® , SIGOS®, SITE®, The Mobile & Internet Performance Authority™ and Keynote FlexUse™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2012 Keynote Systems, Inc.

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