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from
the Pacific Trends Library MONITORING
SERVICES
A good web site receives thousands of
visitors a day. But how many
of those turn into customers? People sign-up or buy when they feel
comfortable with a web site. If it’s down, slow, or broken in any
way, the visitor will usually be uncomfortable and go elsewhere.
Why? Well, do you like to shop in a retail store that is missing
products, has no customer service, or you can’t navigate?
Probably not.
Many web sites have the equivalent of these situations, only they
are represented to visitors as problems with the site. Remember your
web site does the talking for you and visitors make judgments
strictly on their experience at your site. When things do work the
way they should work, the sign-up or checkout process is simple, the
product or service is not confusing, and the whole experience feels
right--the result is customers.
If this is the ultimate goal, corporate web site managers and web
site owners must treat their web site with the same care they would
a physical store or office. In the virtual world we don’t have store
managers, but we do have a relatively new emerging business category:
online monitoring.
Online monitoring services mind the site/store and make sure it’s
open and ready to do business 24 hours a day, every day. These
services can watch site performance, content,
availability/reliability, and security. They can also provide site
managers with immediate notification of problems via alerts. By
watching a site from outside the firewall and not inside, online
monitoring services identify problems that cannot be immediately seen
from the inside.
Monitoring services can’t assure you that your site will be
financially successful, but they will help you maximize the quality,
which is vital to any successful web site and web strategy.
Listed below is a checklist of things to consider when selecting and
purchasing online monitoring services.
1. How is the service provider connected to the Internet?
2. How reliable is the monitoring services? Is it truly 24 x 7?
3. Is this their core business or is it an add-on to other web
based services?
4. Call or email their customer service and see how quickly they
respond.
5. Does the service monitor overall performance or just up/down?
6. Does the service reliably identify most site problems? How
do you know?
7. Are the alerts and reports accurate and timely?
8. Does the service provide enough real information to debug the
site problem?
9. Can you afford to subscribe to an online monitoring system?
Can you afford not to?
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