Now that you’ve made it safely into the next millennium, we have a suggestion for where to reassign those resources: email service. You know the old saying, “You have only one chance to make a first impression.” We’d like to coin a digital equivalent, “You have only one chance to answer the first email quickly.” Why do companies spend hundreds of thousands or more on a Web site, then choose not to respond to email requests for information? It doesn’t compute.

During the summer of 1999, we tested the email service of U.S. financial institutions. The results were terrible. Chalking it up to the learning curve and summer vacations we decided not to publish the results. We repeated the test this fall and found little, if any, improvement.

Banks, large and small, seem to have taken the easy way out, simply
ignoring routine email requests. We expected that credit unions with their reputation for stellar service, would do better. Just the opposite. In our
Nov. 29 test, only one responded to our email query, Arkansas Federal CU (Little Rock, AK; $200 million; 46,000 members); 23 did not.

Email Response Results: Top 20 U.S. Banks

•  30% of questions submitted via Webmail went unanswered/unacknowledged
•  80% of questions sent via email went unanswered/unacknowledged
•  only one of 40 emails sent (2.5%) received an actual answer, most were referred to a toll-free number
•  only 15% of routine email questions about CD rates received an actual answer
•  0% of questions about setting up an SEP/IRA received an actual answer

Source: Online Banking Report, 12/99; tests conducted in Oct./Nov. 1999; the sample size was very small so results are not statistically reliable; but these results are similar to those found by other research companies and are in-line with a similar study we conducted in June/July 1999.

Customer service is one of those topics that engenders passionate calls to action at the staff meeting, but little follow-through. Why? Because it’s hard to do, expensive, and difficult to measure. But if you expect to become a top Web-based company, you better start paying a lot of attention to
the subject.

You won’t be alone. International Data expects the market for customer service automation to grow tenfold from just under $30 million in 1998 to $342 million worldwide in 2003. Frankly, that projection looks low to us, but it depends on whether companies build from scratch in-house or buy turnkey solutions from Web specialists. We expect the latter approach to be most popular, especially for banks, where Web building is not a core competency.

The simplest approach for many banks, is to wait and let their software platform vendor integrate appropriate customer service tools. But if you want to be a leader, you may need to drive a portion of e-service development yourself. To assist, we’ve compiled a list of e-service vendors

Before you knock out an RFP (request for proposal) for a suite of e-service tools, make sure you’ve got your own house in order. The most important area doesn’t require fancy HTML or cgi scripts. The number one thing you can do today, tomorrow and into the future, is to answer email queries quickly and completely. This has more to do with people than technology. Though technology can help you do it far more cost effectively. At right is a list of the top eight e-service priorities.