Keep Online Services Current

CU360
May 27, 2010 | COMMENTS

As consumers become increasingly willing to interact online, with each other and with businesses, financial service firms are realizing they have less freedom over how to design their Internet services.

Surfing the Web has become so common that people now have certain expectations for financial sites—and they're less tolerant of Web pages that don't measure up.

This is a big shift from the early days of online banking, when people had few expectations about this new channel, said Nicole Sturgill, a research director at TowerGroup, speaking at the firm's 2010 Financial Services Strategy & Technology Conference in April.

"Online banking rolled out at the same time people were learning how to use the Internet," she said, and financial companies could deliver whatever services they thought would be useful. That's no longer the case.

Customers now have a much greater sense of what they want to see on a company's Web site, be it an investment firm, bank, or credit union. Web designers have to be careful not to apply old rules to new ways of doing business.

“Siloed” internal operations, for example, translate poorly online. If business lines and channels function as separate operations, it won't take long before customers begin to ask questions about coordination and convenience.

By contrast, those same customers can go to Intuit Inc.'s Mint.com personal financial management Web site and use one system to interact with as many accounts as they want, even accounts at multiple financial companies.

Other observations from industry analysts:

• Older users are increasingly comfortable with social media and other Internet applications typically associated with young people. For example, Fidelity Investments reports that 71% of people who use their Web site also go to Facebook.
• Financial service firms are taking cues from popular mobile-phone applications, and designing systems that play to how people use their phones. Mobile services, for example, are taking advantage of the touchscreen capabilities of smart phones.
• Some financial institutions are replicating the online experience in their branches. Duplicating an online banking interface at the teller's desk makes it easier for the teller to communicate with members or customers. When the teller needs to explain something, he or she can turn the screen around and present the same interface that the client would use at home.

Financial institutions also can make better use of social media sites, said Rodney Nelsestuen, a senior research director at TowerGroup. "Social networks really do drive purchasing decisions," he said, and "the social network is going to stay. It's not going away."

This article was orginally published online by CU360, an online portal for benchmarking tools, market insights, industry data, and analytical information at cu360.cuna.org. Reprinted with permission.