Since 1995, e-service has been an important component of online banking
satisfaction. However, many financial institutions chose to defer major
investment in service capabilities on the theory that users were not
demanding it.

While that may have been true three or four years ago, it’s not the
current reality. Today, mediocre service puts you at risk of losing
sales, cost saving opportunities, and ultimately customers. Luckily,
expectations are still relatively low, so you have an excellent
opportunity to impress your customers

Table 2
Online Self-Service Evolution

Phase	Period	Typical Capabilities	Primary Market
Beta	1995 to 1998	Brochure and short FAQ	Outliers
Version 1.0 Novelty	1999 to 2001	Longer FAQ, email address, rudimentary Web-based inquiry, site search with poor results	Early adopters
Version 2.0 Utilitarian	2002 to 2004	Extensive FAQs, good Web-based inquiry, live chat in certain areas, site search with marginal results	Early mainstream
Version 3.0 Early mainstream	2004+	Deep and detailed online knowledge base with graphical tutorials, interactive Web-based, live chat in most high-value areas, site search with instant answers	All online households (70% in U.S)

Source: Online Banking Report,
3/04                                                      

 

Table 3
E-Service Benefits

Improved customer support

•          Faster and more convenient for experienced online users
•          Able to interact with the bank in quick bursts when
  questions arise; before the issue festers
•          Creates a written record of questions and answers to make followup more efficient
•          Potential for higher quality answers with links to more
  detailed information, attached documents, and so on
•          Potential for customer to interact with the same rep for
  follow-up questions
•          Customer can save or print answers for future reference
•          No more looking up account and phone numbers, then
  navigating tedious phone menus
•          Efficient and detailed incident tracking to ensure
  satisfactory problem resolution
•          User satisfaction of finding their own answers
•          Serendipity: finding useful related information you might
  never have inquired about (e.g., discovering Roth IRAs when looking for
  year-end tax info)

Better market data

•          Easier to categorize and track customer concerns
•          Provides a steady flow of user feedback that can be
  captured and tracked over time
•          Easier to route individual questions/comments so others
  (e.g., marketing dept.) can “hear” what customers are saying, unfiltered
  and in real time

Potential* cost savings

•          Deflect branch, call center, and email queries
•          Ability to handle some questions during off-peak times
•          Ability to route questions to lower-cost centers where
  language fluency is less of an issue (compared to telephone support)
•          Ability to outsource certain question types, such as tech
  support
•          Ability to automate answers to routine questions

Source: Online Banking Report, 3/04

*Since most financial institutions are early in the learning curve,
cost savings are mostly unproven. However, long term the impact is
expected to be dramatic.

Service Quality

No matter how much time you spend analyzing service quality, in the end it
all boils down to this: Satisfied customers receive products and services that
meet or exceed their expectations. Table 4 below outlines nine components of
online service quality.

Table 5

Customer Service Expectations Retail Banking

*relative ease of exceeding customer expectations using online service

 

Attribute	Expec- tation	Import-ance	Ability to Exceed*
Preemptive support	low	high	high
account alerts	low	high	very high
personal attention	very low	medium	very high
identifying potential probs	low	high	high
Self-service	medium	medium	low
saving time	medium	medium	low
convenient	medium	medium	low
quality of results	low	high	high
search results	medium	medium	low
maintaining privacy	high	medium	very low
“do it yourself” satisfaction	medium	medium	low
providing input to bank	low	medium	medium
venting	low	medium	medium
solving the problem	very low	very high	very high
Responsive support	low	very high	very high
email/web inquiry	medium	high	high
immediate autoresponse	low	medium	medium
response time	medium	medium	medium
thoroughness of response	high	high	low
personal attention	very low	medium	high
ability to escalate	low	medium	medium
efficiency (not restating)	low	medium	medium
providing input to bank	medium	medium	low
venting	medium	medium	low
solving the problem	low	very high	very high

Source: Online Banking Report estimates, 3/04

Because customer expectations are relatively low, there are numerous
opportunities to impress even your most jaded customers and even pick up share
from less-enlightened
competitors.