It’s difficult for outsiders to judge a bank’s service levels. Unless you interview a number of customers from each bank, or at least experience the service yourself as a customer, you really can’t evaluate customer service; however, a company’s Web site provides clues to the relative value placed on e-service. Here are the things we would look for as a prospective customer, all of which are affordable even to the smallest organization:

10 Clues You Are Dealing with a Top E-Service Organization

1. Help button on every page

2. Contact Us and/or About Us list telephone numbers, email and mail addresses

3. Hours of operation prominently displayed

4. Customer feedback encouraged, for example, suggestion box or satisfaction survey

5. Detailed and up-to-date FAQs

6. Customer service staff and management identified by name with online bios/pictures

7. Service standards and guarantees prominently posted

8. Easy-to-find prices (not buried on the eighth page of the account agreement)

9. Customer testimonials and/or Q&A forums

10. Management goes online periodically for a public chat with posted transcripts

Source: Online Banking Report, 12/99

We don’t have any special insights into who is providing the best customer service online. Of the dozen or so financial companies we’ve tested, we’ve been most impressed with NextCard (see next page); Confinity/ PayPal.com, although we’ve only had an account there for two months, and PayTrust, where we’ve yet to complete the application process, but have been kept in the loop by the company. Others doing a good job are DLJdirect, Schwab, SFNB, and FirstUSA.

We’ve been disappointed in the service from WingspanBank, although we’ve only done a dozen or so transactions; U.S. Bank, our primary bank (and former employer); Intuit where we’ve registered for many different services but never felt like a “relationship” was established; and VerticalOne which hasn’t done anything to drive us back to its statement aggregation service (chalk that up to merger activity with new owner S1).

A more exhaustive source of customer service performance is Gomez Advisors, which ranks online banks across five categories, including customer confidence. Gomez determines the customer confidence score by evaluating the bank’s Web site and mystery shopping customer service. In the most recent Gomez survey (see below), First National Bank of Omaha was ranked first, scoring a 9.5 out of a possible 10, more than a point ahead of second place M&I Bank (8.4) and third place SFNB (8.2). The remaining top 20 scores fell between six and seven.

Gomez Top 20 in Customer Confidence

Source: Gomez.com, Fall 1999; Criteria: “The leaders in this category operate highly reliable Web sites, maintain knowledgeable and accessible customer service organizations, and provide quality and security guarantees.”