What Van? Britain's biggest and best van buyers' guide

For the second year in a row, What Van? has declared Citroen’s light commercial vehicle website as the best in the business.

Every year, we assess the websites of the biggest players in the UK market across a broad range of criteria, to see which is best-serving its customers and prospective customers from a digital perspective.

Citroen retained its top spot by a single point from Volkswagen, with Mercedes-Benz another point further back in the tightest of finishes, with Fiat Professional also within four points.

The strongest element of the site is it’s industry-leading configuration tool, which can filter the Citroen’s range of vehicles by a wealth of criteria, including price, model, body style, CO2, fuel type, load length, volume and payload to help users select the right model and bodystyle. Choices can be downloaded as a pdf, printed or saved, and the tool also lets the user know why selected options are incompatible, which is really useful with the range of additions that can be made to light commercials.

Of the 10 categories we use to assess each of the top LCV manufacturer’s websites, this was the only one that Citroen actually topped, though it was ranked second in a further three – brochure download facility, response to email request and the quality of its mobile site – while it made top four in another three categories.

The brochure download facility drew praise for the fact that it takes only three clicks to get a comprehensive document downloaded, and that document is both visually appealing and gives all the necessary information.

Citroen also responded well to our email question, coming back with an answer within 100 minutes, and it’s easy to click through to emailing the customer care department in the first place, with no need for filling in a load of details, as is the case with some rivals. We even had a follow-up email six minutes after the first one, clarifying a detail of the answer to our question about whether air conditioning is fitted to the Berlingo van.

The other area where Citroen’s site scored a nine out of 10 was the quality of it mobile site. Resarch on the go is an increasingly important area of modern life, and a website needs to be optimized for mobile and tablet use as well as the traditional desktop screen. Citroen’s is clean, usable and with plenty of depth to it in terms of vehicle information, as well as offering links to the more in-depth elements, should they be required.