Online Banking Strives For the Human Touch
Bank of America, Citigroup, Others Try 'Live Chat'
To Answer Queries and, of Course, Sell Products
Banks have discovered a new way to interact with their customers: online "live chat," in which employees offer real-time help with loans, advise customers on buying a house -- and pitch new products and services.
At least six of the 12 biggest banks in the country have recently rolled out or are developing live-chat capabilities. Most major banks will offer at least a basic chat option by the end of 2006, predicts Jackson Wilson, chief technology officer at Proficient Systems Inc. in Atlanta, a seller of live-chat technology. The most innovative banks use pop-up solicitations based on split-second analysis of a customer's online behavior, inviting customers to chat about a specific offer. Others employ a technique known as "page pushing," in which customers are steered to Internet pages that can be viewed by them and the bank employee together.
At Bank of America Corp. -- the second-largest U.S. bank, as measured by stock-market value -- customers who compare interest rates or fill out a loan application online typically trigger a pop-up message that reads something like this: "Hello. I'm a specialist who helps customers apply for Bank of America home equity lines or lines of credit. Is there anything I can help you with today, through a secure, live chat session?" Clicking on the message then starts a text-message conversation with a bank employee, which can be continued over the phone.
CHATTING UP
See excerpts from a live chat with a bank employee.Banks' interest in live chat comes after the emergence of relatively inexpensive technology that can restore some of the personal touch that was lost after armies of bank customer-service specialists were thinned through the wave of bank takeovers over the past decade. (Total deposits at Bank of America, for example, have, since 2000, grown three times as fast as the size of the company's work force.) "Banks are starting to see the need to inject that human element," says George Tubin, senior analyst at research firm Tower Group Inc. in Needham, Mass.
Bank of America, which boasts more than half of the U.S. online bill-paying market, rolled out its live-chat options gradually during the past year and now has more than 100 full-time chat specialists. Citigroup Inc. is testing chat technology on its myhomeequity.com Web site, which pitches home-equity loans and credit lines. Wells Fargo & Co., a pioneer in this area, has offered chat for its home-equity customers since 2002, accessed by clicking a button on the right side of its loan-application page.
Making online banking feel personal is the next step in the evolution of an industry marked by fits and starts. In the 1990s, online banking's early promise fizzled for lack of a human touch and a physical place to do business. The next wave was to drop online fees, as banks tried to drive customers to use the Web to check balances, pay bills and transfer funds. Banks also began charging fees for basic transactions at the teller line, in a move to drive customers to low-cost ATMs, call centers and Web sites.
Now banks say the standard is making their online "branch" do all the things that a branch manager or a loan officer reached in person or on the phone could do.
Still, chatting isn't a perfect fix for the deep erosion in customer service at banks. Customers are sometimes kept waiting for long periods, while bank employees look up answers or chat simultaneously with other customers, for instance. And because the primary appeal of live chats for banks is as a selling tool, customers may take umbrage at being pushed too hard.
Brad Strothkamp, a consulting analyst at Forrester Research Inc., which is based in Cambridge, Mass., says banks must be careful not to alienate online buyers, many of whom research online because they like the anonymity and lack of high-pressure sales pitches. His research shows customers are OK with a soft-sell invitation with one caveat: "As long as when you say no, they go away."
In an informal test conducted by The Wall Street Journal of the live-chat programs at three banks -- Citigroup, Bank of America and SunTrust Banks Inc. -- response speeds varied by the time of day and the complexity of the question, and some bank employees seemed to know a lot more than others.
At SunTrust's Web site, it took more than 10 minutes for an operator to respond during the middle of a recent weekday. After answering, the SunTrust employee advised switching a 12-month certificate of deposit into a 13-month CD that pays a higher interest rate. She also offered to move our checking account and other accounts to SunTrust, asking if she could follow up with a phone call in a few days. SunTrust says that on average, it responds to a chat request within one minute and 42 seconds, though the wait time varies with volume and traffic patterns.
One chat specialist at Bank of America apologized that interest rates on short-term CDs weren't higher than 3.74% for a one-year CD, but didn't press to sell similar products with higher rates or slightly different terms. Each operator signed off according to their own style, with one named Adonis telling us, "It was a pleasure assisting you today!!!"
Banks use different strategies to staff their live-chat operations. Some smaller banks simply have call-center employees field electronic inquiries in addition to phone calls. SunTrust houses its e-sales group as a separate unit at the bank's Orlando, Fla., call center. Bank of America says it staffs each section of its Web site with employees who have undergone the same training as the sales staff in branches. "You're not chatting with a customer-service rep, you're chatting with a mortgage specialist," said Sanjay Gupta, Bank of America's consumer and small-business e-commerce executive.
Giving extra attention to online customers can boost the bottom line for banks, because those customers keep an average of about 25% more in bank balances than customers who use branches, according to Kevin Kohn, chief executive officer of LivePerson Inc., a chat-technology firm in New York.
Indeed, Bank of America credits its live-chat capabilities for helping to fuel an 800% jump in online sales of mortgages in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, while home-equity loan volume doubled. Citigroup says 90% of customers who get advice online finish filling out a home-equity loan application, compared with about 50% for the banking industry overall. Online home-equity loans at Citigroup are expected to double this year to about $2 billion, says Alan Dakay, CEO of the company's Citi Home Equity unit.
网络银行服务更加人性化
银行找到了与顾客交流的新方法：在线实时聊天。通过这种方法，银行雇员可以向客户提供贷款或买房咨询等各种实时帮助，还能及时推广银行的新产品和新服务。
全美12家大型银行中，至少已有6家最近推出了或正在开发实时聊天服务。实时聊天技术销售商Proficient Systems Inc.的首席技术长杰克森?威尔森(Jackson Wilson)估计，今年年底之前，美国绝大多数的大银行至少会提供一种最基本的聊天服务。最有创意的银行会在对客户上网习惯进行了精确分析的基础上弹出邀请信息，与客户就特定的产品服务进行交流。其他银行则采用一种名为“页面推广”的技术，把客户带入能与银行员工共同浏览的某些网页中。
美国银行(Bank of America Corp.)是美国市值第二大的银行，客户在该行网站上比较利率、或者填写贷款申请时，往往会看到一条弹出信息：“您好！我是贷款专家，帮助美国银行的客户申请物业套现贷款或其他贷款。今天我能帮上您的忙吗？我们可以通过一个安全的实时聊天系统进行交流。”客户点击这条信息，就会启动与一位银行员工的文字信息交谈。这场谈话还可以通过电话继续进行下去。
在此类相对低廉的实时聊天技术兴起之后，银行就开始对它产生了兴趣。因为十年来，随著银行业并购风起云涌，客户服务人员大量减少，银行与客户之间人性化交流也越来越少。而这项技术能让银行从一定程度上重新恢复与客户的直接交流。（2000年以来，美国银行存款总额的增速是员工人数增速的三倍。）马萨诸塞州研究机构Tower Group Inc.的高级分析师乔治?图宾(George Tubin)说，银行开始意识到有必要在服务中加入人性化因素了。
美国银行自称占据美国在线支付市场的半壁江山，去年该行逐步推出了自己的在线实时聊天服务，现在已经有了100多名员工专门从事这项业务。花旗集团(Citigroup Inc.)也在自己提供物业套现贷款和其他信贷服务的网站myhomeequity.com测试这项技术。率先涉足这个领域的富国银行(Wells Fargo & Co.)早在2002年就推出了这项服务，客户只需点击贷款申请页面右侧的按钮即可进入聊天。
银行业发展的下一步就是让网络银行服务更加人性化。九十年代，网络银行出师不利，就是因为缺少人性化，也没有可以眼见为实的办公地点。紧跟著就是下调网络服务的费用，各银行都鼓励客户在网站上查询余额、支付账单和转账。有些银行甚至向那些到柜台来办理业务的客户收取费用，迫使他们使用低成本的自动柜员机、呼叫中心和网站。
现在，银行的目标是让网络“分行”全面处理一位分行经理、贷款承办人通过与客户见面、或电话联络能够完成的所有任务。
不过，聊天并不是解决各银行客户服务质量恶化的灵丹妙药。客户有时不得不长时间等待，等著银行员工去寻找问题的答案或者同时与另一位客户交谈。此外，实时聊天在银行眼中最初的魅力就在于推销功能，客户可能会觉得被追得过紧了。
Forrester Research Inc.咨询分析师布拉德?施托坎普(Brad Strothkamp)说，银行必须小心谨慎，不要吓跑了网络上的顾客。很多人喜欢网络购物，就是因为可以匿名，也不必忍受商家过份的推销。他的研究发现，客户对那些温和的销售还是可以容忍的，只要说不，他们就会走开。
《华尔街日报》对花旗银行、美国银行和SunTrust Banks Inc.三家银行的网络实时聊天进行了非正式测试，结果显示，回应的速度与一天中的时间和问题的复杂程度有关，而且有些银行员工似乎比另一些员工内行得多。
最近一个工作日的午间，SunTrust网站的客服人员花了十多分钟才做出回应。给出答案后，SunTrust的员工建议客户将12个月的大额定期存单转成13个月的定期，这样利率更高。她还建议客户把支票账户和其他帐户都转到SunTrust去，还问她能不能就在这几天给客户打电话。SunTrust称，一般情况下，客户的聊天请求会在1分42秒内得到回应，不过也会根据通话量和繁忙程度而有所变化。
美国银行的一位客户聊天服务人员向我们道歉说，短期大额定期存单的利率并不比1年期大额定期存单的3.74%更高，但他并没有迫切地向我们推销更高利率或条款略有不同的类似产品。每一位客服人员中断谈话时都很有个人风格，一位名为Adonis的人说：很高兴今天能为您服务！！！
每家银行都有处理实时聊天业务的独特策略。规模小些的银行会让呼叫中心的员工在处理电话咨询的同时处理网络咨询。SunTrust则把这部分业务作为奥兰多呼叫中心旗下的独立业务部门。美国银行表示，网站的所有业务部门都配备了经过销售培训的员工。该行的个人客户及小企业电子商务业务部门的主管桑贾伊?古普塔(Sanjay Gupta)说，与客户聊天的并不是客服代表，而是抵押业务专家。
更多关注网络客户会提振银行利润，聊天技术公司LivePerson Inc.的首席执行长凯尔文?科恩(Kevin Kohn)说，这是因为网络客户的平均账户余额会比普通客户的余额高出25%。
的确，美国银行就将第一季度网络抵押产品销售额较上年同期激增800%的业绩归因于此，物业套现贷款的业务量也增加了一倍。花旗集团称，从网上得到建议的客户有90%都填完了物业套现贷款申请，远远高出全行业50%的水平。该行Citi Home Equity子公司首席执行长阿兰?达考伊(Alan Dakay)预计，网络物业套现贷款业务今年有望增长一倍，至20亿美元。
Valerie Bauerlein
