Online banks criticised

Online banking services are often more difficult to use than telephone offerings, according to research.

Information that can be easily given over the telephone is often missing from or hard to find on banks' websites, which generally have "static and complex" FAQ pages, said business service provider Transversal.

Transversal undertook assessments of several online banking services and telephone call centres and found that there was a marked difference in how quickly a customer could have a query resolved.

Email enquiries to banks took an average of 30 hours to get a response, though nearly a third of the banks assessed didn't offer an email enquiry service at all.

However, the average wait to talk to someone on the phone at the busiest time of the day was three minutes and 50 seconds.

"Banks have invested heavily in the internet channel - but our research shows that in the majority of cases it is very much the poor relation when it comes to customer service," said Davin Yap, chief executive of Transversal.

One of the major problems for customers, said Yap, was that the websites contained a lot of unnecessary information, which meant that it was hard to find what they were looking for.

"While previously online customers have had to cope with a lack of information we're now seeing more content - but this makes finding the right answer as difficult as looking for a needle in a haystack. With the advent of Web 2.0 providing the ability to deliver a personalised service and improved interaction banks need to wake up to the changing needs of their customers," he said.

www.transversal.com

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