The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Energy Information Administration’s website, which provides independent and impartial energy information,has about 50,000 visitors each day. In August 2013, EIA conducted a voluntary customer survey that received almost 14,000 responses in one week. The results indicated business and industry visitors account for a little more than 50 percent of website traffic.
Roughly three out of five (62 percent) business and industry respondents reported they were not in the energy industry. Although EIA does not ask customers for their specific employer or field, some customers offered the information in the open-ended questions. In addition to the energy industry, business roles mentioned included commercial real-estate appraisers, global logistics managers,pharmaceutical-industry shippers, truckers, certified public accountants and economics bloggers. Several respondents commented their business depends on EIA information.
Non-business users represent almost half of EIA’s website customers; they are researchers and consultants, teachers and students, bankers and financial analysts, government employees at many levels, reporters and writers, and private citizens, among others.
Visitors to EIA’s website came for a variety of reasons.The most common tasks they reported included researching a topic, making a business decision, writing a report or article, educating themselves about energy and making a forecast about energy. Other reasons include getting weekly gasoline and diesel prices to calculate fuel surcharges.
A total of 69 percent of customer survey respondents said they easily found what they were looking for on the EIA website; an additional 16 percent said they found what they were looking for with some effort. Of the people who found what they were looking for, 86 percent said EIA’s website had the right level of detail.
A total of 92 percent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of the information on the EIA website, and 32 percent gave EIA a score of 10 out of 10.