I was researching a few online brokerage sites and one of them mentioned that they had ranked in the top 5 in a Keynote Ranking study. I’d never heard of Keynote before so I looked at their web site and was surprised to find all sorts of rankings on the utility, ease of use, performance and uptime of competing web sites. For instance, if you want to buy airline tickets, you can look at their travel study to see which of the major airline web sites ranked well. They’re not saying the site will have the lowest prices or the best customer service, but it gives you an idea of the kind of customer experience you’re likely to have if you use that company’s web site.

They also have a business performance index which compares the response time and success rate (i.e. uptime of the site) for some of the top web sites in a few different categories.

I haven’t used the site too much, but so far it’s been pretty useful. I’m of the opinion that a company that has gone through the effort of creating a web site that provides a positive customer experience is likely to treat you well during the rest of the transaction too.