Bank saves $350,000 per month and sees continued rise in customer satisfaction with online banking customer self-service support: says case study released by SafeHarbor Technology
Las Vegas, April 2, 2003 — A case study released by SafeHarbor Technology Corp. today shows a significant increase in cost savings, return-on-investment and customer satisfaction for a top ten national bank using Web self-service for its online banking customer support.
According to the case study, featuring an un-named Fortune 150 financial services company, SafeHarbor's Web self-service support environment is saving the bank an estimated $350,000 per month in telephone support costs. In the first 18 months after SafeHarbor's Web self-service environment was launched, self-service as a percentage of the total support delivered by SafeHarbor grew to 65% on average and to 35% of the bank's overall customer support.
In the same period, support volumes grew almost sixfold. The bank continues to enroll about 2,500 new online banking customers each day, and online self-service support sessions continue to grow faster than telephone support.
"In a high-growth environment like this, the cost-savings from an effective Web self-service customer support environment are substantial," said Bo Wandell, president of SafeHarbor. "The key is providing online banking customers with a self-service environment that is superior to telephone support. SafeHarbor's experience has shown that customers prefer self-service because it makes the most accurate and easy-to-understand answers available immediately, and they can view them side by side with the online banking application."
Customers increasingly prefer Web self-service support to the telephone, according to the case study, and the bank's own research shows that customer satisfaction has risen significantly since Web support was launched.
SafeHarbor's self-service support environment is seamlessly accessible through the bank's Web site. It provides multiple navigation choices, such as FAQs, 'browse the knowledge base' capabilities and search, allowing customers to ask questions in natural language and quickly find easy-to-understand answers. Knowledge articles include step-by-step, visual solutions to customer issues.
SafeHarbor's ongoing service continually optimizes the Web support environment to build user preference for self-service over time. In one example cited in the report, the firm anticipated a new issue resulting from a product change, adding context-sensitive help for customers requiring more secure browser encryption. By anticipating the need for additional help with this issue, SafeHarbor deflected tens of thousands of phone calls in the subsequent three months, saving almost $1 million on that issue alone.
In addition to the Web self-service support environment for online banking customers, SafeHarbor also developed, hosts and manages an internal-facing support environment for the bank's telephone customer service representatives. By replacing reams of printed policy and procedure information with this agent-facing Web support environment, the bank is saving an estimated $100,000 in annual printing costs. Just as important, the support Web site has increased employee productivity by cutting telephone response time an average two seconds per call, providing faster service and saving thousands per month.
To receive a copy of the case study, contact marketing@safeharbor.com.
About SafeHarbor Technology Corp.
SafeHarbor is the leading provider of Web self-service customer technical support. A business process outsourcer, SafeHarbor is the only company that provides Web support as an ongoing service, integrating self-service with analytics and assisted support. SafeHarbor Support Services 3.0 is proven to reduce cost and time to market, while improving satisfaction. For a typical client, self-service adoption rises 304% in the first 9 months after launching SafeHarbor's Web support environment. SafeHarbor is the only company that creates, manages and continuously optimizes multiple Web self-service environments for large corporations that interact with customers, employees, customer service agents or partners online. The company's Web self-service delivers dramatic — and immediate — ROI for clients such as Washington Mutual Bank, SunTrust Banks, American Airlines and NTT/Verio. SafeHarbor is an IBM Premier Business Partner under IBM's PartnerWorld xSP Prime for Service Providers initiative. For more information go to www.safeharbor.com.
Press Contacts:
Margaret Dawson
The Silver Company
(206) 624-0388
margaret@thesilvercompany.com
Susan Cummings
SafeHarbor Technology Corporation
(206) 922-5000
sue@safeharbor.com
For more information about how SafeHarbor can help your company increase productivity, customer retention, satisfaction and loyalty—while reducing support costs—please contact us at:
