FST chats to ANZ's head of Technology Experience

FST have spoken to Darren Baird, who has been given the task of making technology interactions for employees and customers over at ANZ a little bit easier. He has some terrific things to say about consumer preferences for simplicity and time-saving, as well as new technologies in the mobile space. Also some interesting comments on the involvement he and his team have in internal ANZ processes.

New poll on Migration to Self Service

An important focus for many banks is Migration of customers from assisted channels such as branches and call centres, to self-service channels such as internet and phone banking for basic transactional and account checks and maintenance. 2.0 businesses like Mint.com and others are increasingly showing the capability possible in self-service, whilst banks like St George and Suncorp have evolving speech recognition systems, NAB has click to chat, and as we've seen recently, automated click to chat.

How open do you think customers will be to these new interactions? How important is this to your business? Comments welcome and vote in the poll in the left hand column.

Australians want their questions answered in their own accent

Julian Lee from SMH writes on the customer dissatisfaction of call centres overseas, and the subsequent response to re-domicile call centres back to Aus, in 'Overseas call centres being put on hold':

"The contact centre technology company Avaya says only one in 10 Australians is happy to talk to someone at the other end of the line knowing that person is overseas.

Woolworths, a newcomer to the field, has handed the task of fielding calls about its new loyalty card to Australians working from home, whom the industry calls "agents". It has chosen the bush over Bangalore. And, in recognition of what a friendly and professional voice can do to a brand, it is exploring ways of turning what has been a reactive tool into an active one."

Home based agents could become the key in keeping costs low (as low as they were in an offshore environment, that is ironically increasing in cost itself, as agents and professionals there use the demand from the west to ask for better wages and conditions - to the point where some western businesses relocate back to home for cost reasons, as well as customer experience). Home based agents, as well as under utilised branch staff, could contribute to reducing costs, GOS, AHT, and all those other delightful measures...

Read some stories on usability

Have a read of some stories from the Physical Interface blog. Particularly interesting one on the development of the Wells Fargo ATM screens.

Some interesting speakers

From Ted.com is Jan Chipchase, Senior Researcher at Nokia and writer of the excellent FuturePerfect blog. Watch his presentation, very good.

Also of interest is Lift conference, with a mix of speakers. I'm watching Paul Barnett at the moment. Interesting. Colin Henderson from Bankwatch gives a presentation on banking too.

T-Life is coming to Melbourne

Taking over the old Niketown in central Melbourne is T-Life, a new learning and concept store from Telstra. Looks like it will be an immersive brand experience space (the old Niketown was spread across 2 huge floors), but you feel Telstra have a biot of work to do to endear themselves to the Australian public before they can be seen as fun as Nike. Of course the Sydney store is up and running thanks to a very fashionable launch, and has been since late last year - lets see how its foray into the Melbourne market goes ... eggs in one basket?

Does human interaction matter in customer experience?

Interesting question posed in LinkedIns Q&A:

"I recently read an article about how technology has created a more flexible, efficient, more open manner of serving customers, however, it was stated that human interaction and relationships were still competitive advantages. Do you agree? What do you prefer? e-interaction or human interaction?"

Surely, as technology and channels grow in sophistication, the ability for these technologies to meet or even replicate human behaviour will enable them to establish a competitive advantage.

The real story here is understanding what tasks, actions, purposes self-service/e-interaction technologies can be used to make life easier, and what tasks, actions require a face-to-face interaction. I would imagine checking account balances via internet banking or SMS is now a far more attractive interaction than waiting on hold to speak to a banker. Conversely, trying to apply for a mortgage on an ATM is not attractive as speaking to a branch or mortgage specialist.

Customers need to tell us how comfortable they are with each channel, with each new technology, and how they research, select, apply and manage products and services. But regardless of the self-service or assisted-service selection, they must be designed with the HUMAN in the middle, with human behaviours and interaction requirements as the central guiding principle. Someone in the link above also made a good point - remember when you went to a petrol station, and someone pumped the petrol for you, and when we see this now how much of a novelty, a delight it is ... this hospitality approach to making self-service interactions more enjoyable (not necessary any more beneficial, other than the experience itself) could become a key differentiator, ... provided we have the funds.

Editor addition - Recent article in AustralianIT on gesture computing -

Silas Grant, Nokia's lead designer for the Arte range, says the trend in products such as the 8800 and the iPhone is to make interaction with such devices more "human". "As a product begins its life cycle as a tech item, but when you get down the line, design increasingly becomes more and more important," Grant says. "The technology begins to even out, so it is how you can take that technology and make the interaction more interesting and intuitive that becomes more important. This is where designing for control comes in, having the technology adapt to you, rather than you have to adapt to the technology."

So, the ubiquity and commoditisation of technology means that the experience becomes the differentiator, and the connection to humans (making life easier, more fun, more productive, whatever) becomes the key. The capability of technology to become more and more personalised means that the interface of control and evolution of the technology becomes vital.

Analysis of bank advertising

Most of you may have seen the ABCs Gruen Transfer during the week, where banks ads were analysed. Watch the show at this MP4 address, or visit the site (episode 3) for more.

Satisfaction with retail banks drops in US

From Dow Jones:

"According to the third annual retail banking survey by McGraw-Hill Cos' (MHP) J.D. Power and Associates, satisfaction with the retail banking experience dropped 26 points on a 1,000-point scale to 737 this year. Dissatisfaction with fees is the most common problem customers reported and the second-most common reason for switching financial institutions.

The chief reason customers switched financial institutions was dissatisfaction with a bank representative, related to poor service or attitude or a lack of knowledge.

The survey, fielded in January, was based mainly on responses from 19,602 households regarding their experiences with their primary banking provider. The poll was conducted through research panels recruited by a third party and administered online.

Pushing the decline in customer satisfaction was banks' failure to resolve consumers' complaints, as well as long wait times and additional fees."

E-mail a powerful force, in marketing as well as communication

Its funny, when you ask customers if they'd use email as a service or communications tool to ask their bank a question or query, most times they'll probably say 'No, I don't trust it, it takes too long, how do I know the person replying has the right knowledge etc.' Its surprising given how many emails we send and receive in our daily lives, how much we rely on it, and how efficient it can be (but not always is).

I've written recently about emails, and how you should service customers, but if there is a barrier to using emails as a service tool (at least we know this from anecdotal evidence, although actual research shows this not to be the case - I'm wondering if when people are asked would you email the bank, they're thinking of the way they email they're friends or colleagues, and how easy that is ... sometimes we make it hard for our customers to communicate with us!) then how likely is it that they're open to receiving marketing messages from their bank?

Apparently more than we think. Some research I've recently done shows this is the preferred way to receive offers - as long as they're relevant, personalised, targeted - otherwise, they're just spam. eMarketer has come to the same conclusion - see the table above. Surprising stats there are the response to DM letters - given this is not just about banks, perhaps some compelling offers come through in the mail from other retailers, airlines, technology companies, mobile providers, etc.

So how do we approach email marketing? With great care. Test it only once you have excellent customer data, can push it through a secure environment like Internet Banking (combined with a personalised offers page), and you have the manpower to respond to individual customer needs.

Email and search still neglected

A while ago I quoted a piece called 'Email is becoming so passe' which discussed the takeover of email by social networking forums as communication tools between friends - of course we all know that email is prob the number one way we communicate with each other at work, and so its the same desire with customers, who prefer to use email as their main communication channel with organisations.

Email is the number one task executed on the web, in front of search. Its funny that the following tends to occur in banking, and many other industries:

EMAIL

The email channel is poorly managed, under resourced and generates a fairly woeful customer experience. Email is the number 1 way customers want to interact with us - and we offer a poor service.

Here are some basic stats - from eMarketer: "Two-thirds of adult respondents said they preferred e-mail for communicating with businesses. Just as many—and this is the important part—said they expected to still prefer e-mail five years from now. "; many companies experience up to 25% of emails left unanswered - thats 25% of a lot sales opportunities going out the door, and customers left feeling unloved and uncared for by their existing or potential provider; of the emails that get through, over half fail to answer queries or sell effectively to meet customer needs.

This is a massively underutilised channel - time to change the situation. Some instructions to create quality email output:

1. Create robust reporting for any embedded or dedicated email teams
2. Aim for a response time in line with customer expectations - most customers expect a response within a 4 to 48 hour window - are you within this 90-100% of the time?
3. Build competency in written language skills, rather than assuming call centre agents can write as well as they speak
4. Regularly check the quality of response, ensuring restatement of the question(s) and content quality
5. willingness to assist/sign up customer,
6. direction back into assisted or self-service channels where applicable
7. Amazingly, I have to recommend spelling and grammar checks ... a larger proportion than you think is failing here

SEARCH

Search engines on sites, as well as the search engine optimisation that brings customers to sites, is often using old, defunct or unfamiliar technology - if Google possesses 70% of the market, why would we feel the need to create new behaviours and ways of searching? Search also possesses the most power in terms of advertising dollars online, and increasingly offline, so why ignore it as a medium? Up to half of all users start their online experiences using a search engine - to them 'its the internet' - ever seen someone type a url into a search engine rather than the address bar? Why would you think they would do that? What behaviour has been entrenched here?

Some further tips:

1. Dont create new behaviours for customers to learn - understand the way they currently hunt or trawl for information
2. If you do create new behaviour, make it better, easier, simpler, more engaging, ACCURATE
3. Make the connection between search and content, and content and application so easy to be compelling enough to complete - end-to-end process analysis here is critical
4. Set targets and objectives for search functions - not just for SEM campaigns, but also for SEO and internal search
5. Scrutinise keywords and tags regularly - sites grow organically where there are multiple content providers etc

Treat email just as importantly as your other channels - whether the emails come from the website, internet banking, an email address given out by your bankers, wherever. It might just prove to be the most powerful channel you have.

And invest in search - both organic search listings in engines, and on your own site. Compare your sites search results with how a Google or Yahoo would search your site - understand how different experiences are being delivered.

Web users 'getting more selfish'

Our friend Jakob tells the BBC that users are getting more selfish in their user behaviour:

"Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave. Most ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention.

Success rates measuring whether people achieve what they set out to do online are now about 75%, said Dr Nielsen. In 1999 this figure stood at 60%. There were two reasons for this, he said. "The designs have become better but also users have become accustomed to that interactive environment," Dr Nielsen told BBC News. "

Read the full article here - well worth it.

A new consumer segment - Digital Savvy

SmartCompany / Research Brief reports on a new consumer segment:

According to Research Brief, the digital savvy are defined by their ownership of hi-tech items such as high-def TVs and PDAs and common use of the web to perform tasks like banking, blogging, gaming and content downloading.

Scarborough Research identified the group by putting together a list of more than 20 techie devices and habits and asking people to indicate how many they own or do – those that ticked eight or more out of the 20 get the nod for being digitally savvy.

And, according to the research, they are precisely the sort of people you want to have walking into your shop or visiting your e-commerce website, being:

• 56% more likely than the average consumer to have a luxury vehicle.
• 175% more likely to have spent $US500 or more on business clothing in the past year.
• 49% more likely to own a second home.
• 132% more likely to have an annual household income of $US150,000, and 57% of this group has an annual household income of $US75,000 or greater.

And, unsurprisingly, the digital savvy spend big online, with 35% spending more than US$1000 online over the past year.

"They are early adopters when it comes to fully integrating new technologies into their lives,” Scarborough Research senior vice president Gary Meo says. “Their shopping patterns, demographics and lifestyles could presage behaviours of consumers across the country."

Innovation round up - May 08

BE KIND REWIND - Get into this site - don't worry, you'll feel like you've 'broken the internet' but persist to get to the 'Google' page

NEW BLACKBERRY TO TAKE ON iPHONE - For all you crackberry addicts out there, there's a new toy

DON'T IGNORE BLOGGING - By 2012, more than 145 million people—67% of the US Internet population—will be reading blogs at least once a month - its an important medium!

37 SIGNALS - A range of really interesting web based database and CRM tools, as well as Campfire, a chat tool for working groups

BIT LITERACY - Too many emails, documents, websites? It's all too much. "Information overload" is discussed at the water cooler, bemoaned in the press. Mark from GoodExperience is behind it.

GOOGLE FRIEND CONNECT - Google is introducing a Web site tool called Friend Connect today that promises to extend the reach of social networks such as Facebook to any site that wants to use the tool.

AUSTRALIANS PREFER MOBILES OVER LANDLINES - 90% of household consumers have both a fixed line phone and mobile phone, with 45% preferring to use mobiles as their main voice communications. Also of interest from CallCentres.net - 58% of respondents were either "very" or "extremely satisfied" using a speech recognition system - an 11% increase on the findings of a similar survey in 2005

HAPPY JETTING - Have some fun with Jet Blue, click on the Flight Simulator for example

HOW 8 CEOs APPROACHED THEIR FIRST 90 DAYS - Being able to take charge quickly and effectively in the first months of a CEO role becomes an important leadership competency.

GAMING INDUSTRY AT FOREFRONT OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, AND MAKING $$ - Learn what 'time-to-extinction' means ... it has something to do with an empty wallet

Experiential travel from Ideo

Ideo have created the IdeoEyesOpen project, a book/website project exploring under and over the surfaces of the things we see everyday, and understanding of true experiences in the familiar:

"IDEO believes that forward-thinking design and innovation comes from a combination of insight and inspiration, and that the greatest ideas mean very little if you can’t experience them firsthand. EyesOpen guides and tours are ongoing projects that aim to draw inspiration from culture and communities and the experiences they create, while the EyesOpen website seeks to explore emergent ideas by tying them to concrete experience. For more about IDEO, the process we use, and the clients we work with, please visit IDEO.COM"

Have a look at the beautiful books that go with it.

Choice magazine talks about their views on recent merger activity

From The Age:

"It's clear that competition in the banking sector is not working as well as it should. In fact, competition is getting worse, not better.

Indeed, what's not clear is how a merger between one of the Big Four and the fifth biggest bank in Australia (with a particularly strong position in NSW and South Australia) will increase competition. Even if the cost of funds decreases as promised, there is no guarantee that any benefit will be passed on to customers. This is precisely why competition needs to have priority over other considerations."

...

"How many bank customers who were thrown into a rage because of poor service or high fees have had to back down on their threats to leave the miscreant bank because it is just all too hard? While 25% to 40% of bank customers express dissatisfaction with their current institution, only 3% actually switch accounts.

As things stand, customers are not able to drive competition by easily choosing a better deal, and that means incentives to offer better products are undermined. A competitive market will encourage banks to innovate — to offer attractive differences in price or service to draw new customers — but this can't work where it's too difficult for consumers to switch."

Article continues...

Google announces some interesting new stuff

Google announces a new Google Finance page layout - "we have launched a newly redesigned home page for all our Google Finance sites (U.S., Canada, U.K., China). It's now easier to follow the latest news affecting the market as well as those that are relevant to your portfolio. We hope you enjoy this new look. The simultaneous launch of the new homepage across countries is just one of the new features and updates to come."

As well as a Google Finance for China - After adding Shanghai/Shenzhen market data into Google Finance and launching the Chinese finance onebox last year, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Finance China. Now it's easier to get Chinese stock and mutual fund data through our easy-to-use and familiar interface in Chinese.

Theres also an interesting list of what makes a design Googley - Googley Design Principles:

1. Focus on people—their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today's and tomorrow's business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people's trust.
10. Add a human touch.

These are powerful in any channel. Note Googles UX aspiration distilled from the list above - "The Google User Experience team aims to create designs that are useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable. Achieving a harmonious balance of these ten principles is a constant challenge. A product that gets the balance right is "Googley" – and will satisfy and delight people all over the world."

Social Media spaces are the best vehicle for people to vent

If you thought blogging and social media was not for your bank to get involved in, think again, because your customers are using them more than you are, and they're saying all sorts of good, and mostly bad things about the service your organisation provides:

"59% of internet users use social media to “vent” about a customer-care experience. 74% of internet users choose companies/brands based on others’ customer-care experiences shared online, according to Society for New Communications Research. 72% research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes. 84% consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company. 81% say blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% say they believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously." Read the full article here.

Social media has become a crucial source of knowledge and confirmation for many customers, and now service and customer care quality is discussed, rated, even judged in these new environments. Word of mouth via social networks and community spaces is more powerful than ever - you don't have to be involved, just be aware and across what's happening. Make sure your organisations service quality leaders listen to this feedback, and respond where appropriate. Ignore it and you'll be left behind.

TheBankChannel Poll Needs You!

Make sure you vote in Aprils poll on the benefits of customer experience management to your business - have a look in the left hand column and vote today!

NAB releases Customer Promises

Following pioneering work from ANZ, NAB has released a set of Customer Promises, based around 3 key themes:

- Providing smarter banking products and services
- Making it easier to do business with us, and
- Giving support and assistance to help our communities grow.

"The Customer Promise clearly outlines the goals we're setting ourselves in three areas. This gives our customers a clear picture of what we're aiming to achieve on their behalf, as well as providing us with a mechanism to gauge our performance against those aspirations", Australia chief Andrew Thorburn said.

Things that relate to direct and self-service banking include an uptime promise of 99% for Internet and phone banking, answering emails with one business day, update every ATM by 2009, and answering calls 90% time within 60 seconds. It will be interesting to see if NAB can consistently deliver on these, but we should also assume customers have set these expectations for the bank to meet.

One I also like is "use clear, everyday language to explain our products, services and fees" - this has been an issue for me for a while, and the sooner we can break down the barriers of the jargon and terms and conditions we use in our daily lives at the bank the better our customers will be - I just hope banks have asked customers how they describe products and services (despite the swearing!).