Does your website have a bad attitude ?

Although you might not think so, investors can tell a lot about your company's attitude towards them simply by visiting your website.

In most cases, companies come across either as service-oriented and welcoming, or they givthe impression of being aloof and disinterested. In some cases companies look incompetent, in which case pity or disdain may be the common response from users.

Since a website visit is an interaction between the user and your company on the user's terms, it is near impossible for you to hide the truth about your true attitude towards investors. Either you are focused on their needs or you are not. There's no middle ground.

Some companies think they are doing a good job pretending to be service oriented. Their sites are set up with the sole purpose of putting a barrier between them and their shareholders and investors. The objective is to rebuff people, not to engage them. They are soon found out.


IR and the Internet both involve relationships
The practice of investor relations by its very definition involves building and reinforcing relationships. The Internet, meanwhile, is very much a relationship medium.

The experience people have on your website has the same impact as if they were interacting with your company in person or on the phone. Being rude, offhanded or simply uninterested is a recipe for trouble.

In face-to-face meetings between people, communication is about more than the substance of what is said. Much of the communication is unspoken, embedded in things like context, tone and body language.

The same applies online. In fact, Web users are much less tolerant in their online interactions because the experience is impersonal. They are interacting with a website, not a human being with whom they can reason or feel empathy. When things go wrong their reactions are stronger, more hostile and less constrained by the usual social restraints of interpersonal communication.


Think like your user
Investors can interpret your attitude towards them from a large number of individual experiences during their visits to your site. They notice things in the site's design, structure, navigation, usability and content that they interpret as evidence of your attitude towards them and other stakeholders.

In many cases, companies and investor relations departments don't realize what messages they are giving investors on their websites. This is because their websites are not a priority. They are not managed proactively or strategically. Sites often are outsourced and forgotten about.

The best way to avoid making a bad impression on investors and shareholders is to think like them. Put yourself in the shoes of your website's users and ask what is it that they want.

Only by putting your audience's needs ahead of all others — including your own — can you achieve a reasonable level of certainty that you are portraying your company and department positively to investors.


Measuring your site's attitude
There are hundreds of ways that a website can signal your company's attitude toward investors. Some of the more obvious ones are:

• Incomplete contact information;



• Ignoring inquiries or being unhelpful in email correspondence;



• Offering inadequate shareholder services information and resources;



• Not designing web sites around the needs of users;



• Failing to recognize international users;



• Making investors work to find information that should be easily available;



• Failing to properly identify downloads;



• And probably the worst offense of all, treating people differently based on their profession or perceived importance to the company.
  
  
  
  
  

You can measure your website's online attitude as we do as part of our IR website evaluations. We also show our clients how their sites' service attitude compares to that of more than 500 other companies and the average of their sector.

If other companies in your industry or peer group have a bad online attitude towards investors, then it might be a good investment to improve your site's attitude to attract investors and reinforce relations with current ones.

Of course, there is no point in trying to look as though you are interested in attracting and retaining shareholders if you actually are not. If management at your company doesn't have much regard for investor relations, then it will show in one way or another.

However, if your department is interested in building strong long-term relationships with investors, then it is time to test your IR website's attitude. Right now your website might well be giving someone the wrong impression.

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