By Cid Jenkins, ATG

According to JupiterResearch (recently acquired by Forrester Research), the only customer service touch points with consistent and appreciable gains in customer satisfaction and adoption since 2001 have been click to call and click to chat. Sites that have implemented these services are seeing abandonment rates decrease by 25 to 30 percent.

In our own experience at ATG, we’ve found that companies in financial services industry, in particular, can have great success with click to chat implementations, due to the nature of their business. One of the reasons that click to chat works so well in this case is that consumers are often uneasy about the prequalification process. They’re unsure if they qualify and are uncomfortable engaging in a phone conversation about their credit history. Click to chat lets these people answer their questions and solve their problems without speaking to anyone on the phone. They feel more anonymous, more protected, when they’re chatting online.

To put it in context, imagine you’re consolidating your credit card balance. You can call your bank, wade through the phone menu and wait on hold 10 minutes before you have to divulge private information to someone you’ve never met. Or you can go to the Web site, fill out a form and, if you need any questions answered, just click on a link that will open up a chat session with an agent who knows just how far along you are on the form and can then walk you through the rest of the application.

A customer of ours – and one of the largest banking and financial corporations in the world – took great advantage of this dynamic when the company implemented click to chat in its customer care unit in early 2007. The company wanted to increase revenue by helping customers transfer a balance from another bank to the financial institution’s card. The idea was to get more customers to sign up for online account access because it would be more effective and convenient for the customer, and less expensive for the company. Also, executives were looking for new ways to increase customer loyalty and thought that improving the online experience was a great way to do it.

Later that year, the card services department started using click to chat to help prospects complete an online credit card pre-qualification application. Now the company manages about 6,000 chat sessions per month.

Armed with a complete view of the customer’s online profile, this company’s customer service representatives were able to connect with its prospective customers in a way that made the customers feel most comfortable, at exactly the time when they were ready to make a commitment.  The reps could resolve questions faster and more effectively with the chat channel than with any other, and were able to catch customers directly from the Web site, where they started their process.  

Within a few months, the financial institution increased online sales, lowered web site abandonment rates, shortened issue-resolution times, made its support centers more productive, and reported higher customer satisfaction.

More and more, we’re expecting to see financial services businesses bridging the gap between their online and offline channels to ensure a continuous customer experiences—and higher revenue.

[tags] e-commerce, eCommerce, financial services, click to call, click to chat [/tags]