After 12 months of hard work your Web site finally passes muster with the
EVPs of Marketing, IS/IT, Legal, and Branch Administration, but can users
find out how much a new order of checks cost? Here are some ways to boost
your Web site’s usefulness.
For most companies the most important function of a Web site is helping
existing customers find answers to product and service questions, reorder
products, and build brand loyalty.
You still have some time to get it
right. The early adopters using the Web today are accustomed to plodding
through confusing user interfaces in search of an elusive kernel of
information. Tomorrow’s user looking up an account balance on their WebTV
during a commercial on The Tonight Show won’t be so tolerant, which
makes 1998 the year to fine-tune your online presence before mistakes start
costing real money.
There are three areas of Internet-based customer service that could stand
improvement at most financial institutions:
- Facilitating self-service
- Responsiveness (speed/quality)
- Personalization
Self-Service
High-tech companies such as Sun, Microsoft, etc. report millions of
dollars of savings each month delivering technical support over the Web. For
a financial institution, the savings won’t be as dramatic, but they may have
similar effects on the bottom line. Depending on how clever you are in
migrating customers to self-service (without alienating your profitable
customers in the process), you may be able to get at least some of the more
mundane questions solved on the Web instead of your call center (e.g., What
is the rate on _____?).
Furthermore, e-mail lends additional flexibility in staffing customer
service centers. E-mail queries can be answered during lulls in call volume,
or if the call center becomes overloaded, e-mails could be forwarded to
back-up staff elsewhere in the company (or at their homes).
Here are some ideas to consider for 1998:
1. Upgrade your online help/FAQs (frequently asked questions). The
problem with most online FAQs is that they are not updated frequently
enough, nor are they organized in a logical fashion. Part of the problem is
that making changes is often a tedious process, taking days, or even weeks
to wind their way through the appropriate departments for approval. Why not
empower certain customer service leads to log into your Web and make
additions/clarifications to your FAQ as needed? Marketing/legal could review
changes in “real-time” as part of the posting process, not as a separate
step slowing up the process.
2. Build a customized search engine with integrated table of contents.
When you look for something in a book you may use the table of contents to
find the general area of information, or the index to find citations for
specific terms. Your Web should work the same way. The table of contents (or
site map) should point users in the general direction of interest (e.g.,
financial planning for retirement) while your index (search engine) delivers
them to the exact right spot (e.g., home equity rates). And make sure you
put the search engine through rigorous testing. Many financial institution
search engines are laughable. More than once I have found no citations for
“online banking” on a bank’s Web that just launched a huge online banking
initiative.
3. Develop a full set of interactive customer service forms. Many
financial institutions are finding that the biggest cost of a Web presence
is customer service. The first line of defense against spiraling customer
service costs is helping customers help themselves. But that won’t solve all
customer problems. When they do come to your for additional information, use
detailed forms with built-in diagnostics that elicit all the pertinent facts
right away so that you don’t have to waste time going back for more
information. To get an idea of how this works, check out the Member
Services area of America Online (screenshot on facing page).
Users are taken through a series of yes/no questions to narrow down their
problem before requesting assistance.
America Online puts users through a series of
diagnostic steps before hitting the free-from
“e-mail us” screen. Keyword <Member Services>.
4. Develop multi-level FAQs that can be browsed or searched. In a
multi-level FAQ, only the most common questions are shown for a given
subject. Users drill down from the top-level if they want additional
information. Check out the QSpace FAQs on credit reports for a good example
of how to nest questions, www.qspace.com.
You may also need a search engine that hits only your FAQs. That way
someone with a question on balancing a checkbook won’t be taken to the check
reorder form. For an example, see the Quicken Support area of
Intuit’s Web www.intuit.com.
Intuit’s searchable FAQs begin with the user entering a
product name to further refine the search. A similar approach would make
sense for financial institutions.
Bank of America’s Contact Area
When you click on Contact from anywhere on
BofA’s Web www.bankamerica.com you are delivered to a page that
prescreens your questions. For example, the Technical Questions
area asks for basic information such as browser type/version, computer
platform, service provider, problem description, error messages, etc.
Bank of America does a good job directing users to the proper
area to get help. Internally, this is an enormous help to BofA in
providing timely responses. We especially like how they provide
mini-FAQs before presenting the e-form to ask a question.
BofA’s HomeBanking help area.
When clicking on HomeBanking users get a 24-question FAQ list
that answers the most common questions such as “How much does
HomeBanking cost? or “Does HomeBanking work with Quicken?” Following the
24-question overview is a simple e-form to request help.
www.bankamerica.com/contact/homebanking.html.
Responsiveness
Expectations of a timely response vary with the medium. When you write a
letter, a response within a few weeks is deemed adequate. When you send an
e-mail, a response is expected within a few hours. Few firms are delivering that
kind of turnaround, providing you the opportunity to become known as the
Nordstrom of cyberspace (i.e., provider of tremendous service).
5. Offer instant credit approval even if it’s conditional on
employment verification, home appraisal, etc. The big consumer lenders will
eventually all adopt some type of instant approval/prequalification. If you
intend to compete with the aggressive lenders, you’ll need to consider instant
online credit approval. Not only does this position you as a highly responsive
lender, done right it could be quite profitable as well.
Only three lenders in North America have gone real-time: Beneficial
National Bank, Bank of Montreal, and BayShore Trust, so you still have time
to position yourself as a pioneer in this area. We know that online credit
applications, especially with instant approval, give your underwriting
department a major headache. But you don’t have to sacrifice credit quality to
give applicants quick feedback on the likelihood of their loan application being
funded.
6. Offer real-time customer service via online “chat” mode. Online
chat allows users to type questions and receive real-time typed replies. Chat
can be public, visible to anyone in the “room,” or private, visible only to the
customer and the customer service rep. Private chat has the most applications
for financial institutions, though you could experiment with public chat. There
are a number of tools available that allow you to moderate, or censor, chat in
real-time so that offensive or inappropriate material is squelched. Though you
would most likely want a human moderator involved at all times.
Thanks to new “chat servers” available from several vendors such as iChat
or eShare, you can experiment with chat services with little up-front
investment. These vendors will host private-branded chat on their servers using
their software. You provide the artwork, layout, context and moderator. Start
with just a few experimental hours each day where you offer “beta testers” a
chance to interact with service reps real-time.
Another advantage of chat is that edited transcripts of pertinent
conversations could be posted to add some interesting ever-changing content to
your Web.
7. Automatically confirm all e-mails submitted. Every e-mail submitted
to your bank should get an immediate response confirming receipt and providing
an estimate of when the user will receive an answer. This can easily be done
entirely with automation.
8. Provide fast e-mail problem resolution. E-mail customer service has
been getting a bad name in cyberspace. Many large companies have done a poor job
in staffing this area, and response times (if you even get a response) are often
measured in days or weeks instead of minutes or hours as expected from serious
Internet users. In our experience, we rarely get a response in the same day, and
it is not unusual to wait a week or longer. Differentiate yourself by promising
60-minute turn time on most e-mail queries. Even if you can’t solve the problem
entirely, you can get back to the customer within an hour to explain what
research is being conducted and an estimated time to expect resolution.
Personalization
We recently spent two months covering personalizing and customizing ideas and
tactics so we won’t reiterate those here. Keep in mind
that customization schemes will flourish next year as Web publishers take
advantage of the latest browser features. You would be well-advised to begin at
least experimenting in this area.
9. Store online form inputs on your server. Once a user has submitted
an online application or info request, the data would be saved on your server
for immediate recall for a future application. Users should be given the
opportunity to opt out though, since many recoil at the thought of their
personal profile being accessible through the Net.
10. Provide personal e-bankers. E-bankers are real people providing sales
and service to their own book of Web users. E-bankers should be armed with
complete account history, user profiles, historical records of electronic
interactions, and preference data for their customers. Using Web-based messaging
and e-mail, personal e-bankers could manage a portfolio of 1,000 or more users.
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