One untapped area with lots of potential is online chat. Online chat is not new. Several financial services firms have offered online chat for years, with varying degrees of success when it comes to customer satisfaction. Surprisingly, many financial institutions have yet to fully embrace it as an essential tool to optimize the millions already invested in their Internet presence.
For financial services firms, online chat has many advantages, including the ability to:
• Serve customers in their preferred communications channel;
• Address customer issues in real-time in the online environment;
• Attract a hyper-digital generation that will not pick up the phone or visit a branch for service;
• Foster continued use of Internet banking;
• Increase applications and/or reduce application leakage (for loans, mortgages) by assisting with the completion of online forms;
• Take social interactions (via Twitter, Facebook) into a more private and secure online setting;
• Reduce expensive calls into the call center; and
• Achieve higher customer satisfaction scores over other channels.
For additional information about online chat and to get the results of a benchmarking study read the article in Bank Systems and Technology: http://www.banktech.com/blogs/231000217
Click here for related Mercator content:
Online Banking Today and Strategies for the Future: Increasing Adoption, Access, and Usage: http://www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com/index.php?doc=Banking&action=view_item&id=508&catid=17
US Consumer Online Banking Solution Review: It’s All in the Eyes of the Beholder:
http://www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com/index.php?doc=Banking&action=view_item&id=559&catid=17
