Over a third (34%) of UK companies surveyed never monitor their website performance, according to the latest Web Effectiveness Report 2003 conducted by website testing firm SciVisum.

Of the remainder many conduct a performance review only following customer or internal complaints, and almost half relied on internal colleagues to notify them on an ad hoc basis of any problems, according to the report.

In the retail sector, where all companies surveyed deliver sophisticated e-commerce services for customers or suppliers online, a third (33%) perform page availability testing only.

In the financial sector, half of respondents never monitor the performance of their online services.

Although only 49% of government websites offered transactional services, government organisations were found to monitor performance most closely. Over 70% of government sector organisations do so, with accessibility for disabled users the main focus.

'UK corporates are running their websites blind - it is shocking that more than three quarters have to rely on customer complaints to improve their services,' said Deri Jones, chief executive of SciVisum in a statement.

'Once a customer has complained, in most cases it is too late to rescue the relationship. And it will already have impacted the business.

'Senior management support for their web offerings is all mouth and no trousers: such low-level backing hardly supports even a half-decent service,' Jones added.