November 1999

Banking On Call Management

BY JUDI BONADIO

In this era of convenience banking, consumers want the traditional look and feel of their personal bank branch combined with the large-scale availability of big bank services. But with ongoing deregulation and "merger mania" in today's banking industry, the structure and services of traditional brick-and-mortar banks have changed dramatically. Branches are now appearing in supermarkets, convenience stores, and retail outlets. Additionally new bank branches are popping up on street corners every day. The survival — and growth — of bank branches is the result of the banking industry's efforts to meet customer demands for more convenient methods of banking.

PROFIT OR LOSS
One of the most overwhelming responsibilities of bank branches is to manage the large volume of incoming local calls, approximately 50 percent of which are routine questions regarding business hours, branch addresses, or account balances. Since banks generally make their profits through specific transactions, such as interest on loans and investments or opening new checking accounts, branches must somehow focus on revenue-generating activities while maintaining quality customer service. This problem is compounded for smaller, in-store banks that have fewer employees to deal with phone inquiries.

Due to these issues, banks have been aggressively looking for cost-effective methods to provide superior customer service, improve profit margins, and implement a quick and easy approach for handling incoming call traffic without tapping scarce human resources. The solution is call management technology, which often encompasses an automated system that both answers routine questions and offloads account questions to a main bank’s call center.

SAVING TIME AND MONEY
Although call centers have certainly relieved some human resource headaches, the cost for this technology is high. The majority of services operate on 800 numbers with calls being routed back and forth over long-distance lines, resulting in large phone bills. New call management technology can meet the call volume demands while efficiently utilizing the call center. Such a highly customizable system requires significantly lower trunking capabilities and operates primarily through locally based telecommunications providers, significantly reducing costs.

The technology allows a bank branch to use its current local phone number to “front end” incoming calls (supporting its profile as a community bank). Customers get a simple touch-tone menu with a series of service options. Callers who need specific assistance can be rapidly connected to their local branch representative at the press of a button.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Many call management systems are provided by long-distance carriers acting as vendors, such as MCI and AT&T. These companies offer systems such as the “Take Back & Transfer” and “Transfer Connect” products. These systems often have the customer call an 800 number that goes to the carrier’s central node somewhere in the United States. If the customer needs further assistance beyond routine branch information they will be transferred back to either their local branch or to the bank’s IVR/call center. Throughout this process the bank is charged long-distance fees.

New technology makes this process much more efficient. Some service providers have hundreds of local nodes or “points-of-presence” across the country. Their service utilizes DID trunks with “Take Back & Transfer” or “Transfer Connect” type features, but on a local basis. Therefore, a customer can call the bank using the branch’s local 7-digit number and the call is routed to the service provider’s local node (process center), generally with no local carrier charge.

From the branch’s primary local telephone number, incoming calls are redirected to menu-driven recording options. All forwarded calls pass through a time-of-day router that determines whether the call should be sent to the “business hours” or “after hours” menu. Customers then choose from options such as accessing branch details, being transferred to the call center for account information, or being transferred to a branch representative to open a new account.

If a customer wants routine branch information or needs to be transferred to a local branch, the call remains local, providing significant cost savings as opposed to using a centralized long-distance carrier. Long-distance charges only occur when the call is transferred to a bank’s call center in a remote city via the existing 800 number.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
The number of non-revenue-generating calls to branch full-time employees (FTEs) is reduced by approximately 45 percent. More information requests are handled by the service provider’s process center, and numerous customers are directed to the bank’s call center. Consequently, fewer FTEs are required to operate and staff the phones, employees are more productive, and customer service is improved — busy signals are virtually eliminated and revenue-generating customers have better access to branch employees.

WHAT ARE THE CHOICES?
In the next six years, approximately half of the banks in the United States will disappear due to further consolidation. Therefore, banks are aggressively trying to win new customers and retain their present patrons by forming convenient and comprehensive one-stop shopping operations while maintaining high customer service standards. To do this, banks need to look to telecommunications technology. By utilizing a fully automated system to handle large call volumes, employees remain productive, costs are lowered, more revenue-generating customers are serviced, and all customer requirements are met quickly and professionally. Ultimately, this means a healthier bottom line for competing banks.

Judi Bonadio is vice president of marketing and business development at Premiere Voice & Data Messaging. The company is the voice and data messaging unit of Premiere Technologies and offers private digital data networks for messaging with local access to over 4,500 cities around the globe. For more information, please visit their Web site at www.premtec.com

In 1996, Bank of America (formerly NationsBank) was planning its first-ever in-store supermarket banking centers in Florida to provide customers with a more convenient way to do their banking. Most of the new branches would be staffed by only one or two associates at a time, and Bank of America knew from experience that there was the potential for the associates to be kept busy answering phones and fielding routine questions for most of the day. The bank was concerned about frustrating in-store customers with a lack of personal attention and hampering the associates in attending to revenue-generating transactions, such as new accounts and loans. They also wanted to prevent phone customers from facing busy signals or being put on hold.

"We realized early in our planning stages that we needed an extensive communications system to offload the burdens placed on our employees,"stated Lisa Kothe, vice president of Desktop Consulting Services, Bank of America.

It was clear that developing such a system would take a tremendous amount of time, capital, and maintenance. Bank of America initially launched the supermarket branches in late 1996 using a long-distance communications vendor, but they soon found the service to be expensive and unreliable. This prompted them to search for a more comprehensive and economically viable solution. In late 1997 they selected Premiere Voice & Data Messaging’s BankGreeter to provide their branches with a fully automated and highly customizable call management solution.
BankGreeter’s hundreds of POPs across the country allowed Bank of America to utilize the system via local branch numbers in order to maintain their local identity and reduce call transport charges. BankGreeter was installed in 75 supermarket branches and was later installed in 35 traditional brick-and-mortar branches.

“BankGreeter provided all of our callers with an automated menu customized to our needs and requirements,” says Kothe. “The number of calls handled by our supermarket branch associates has since been reduced by approximately 38 percent, allowing our employees to focus more on revenue-generating transactions. BankGreeter allows us to maintain our superior customer service standards.”