In a recent whitepaper entitled “Social Media Services: Trends in Customer Care Outsourcing”, International Data Corporation (IDC), a leader in market intelligence for telecom and information technology, looked at some of the key trends and differentiators in Social CRM.

A key point in the study is that Social CRM is still very new ground. Making an investment now allows organizations to “get in on the ground floor” and lay the framework to support additional channels as they evolve, and to be part of the creation of the best practices for what works in the social sphere. As the technology evolves, it’s likely that social will cease to be an “add-on” or optional support channel and much more likely that it will become standard to CRM implementations due to customer expectations. (This evolution may happen faster than you think: per a recent story on MediaBistro, 71% of 16-24 year olds indicate the first thing they do when they have a problem with a product is go online, and the shift to social channels is not exclusive to that demographic. ) The overarching goal is to create a single, unified view of the customer. This way, appropriate social media interaction with the customer can be conducted with the appropriate history and context.

Some of the key differentiators of social CRM that will require your business to put new best practices into place are:

• Channels are now customer-dictated. While voice-based call centers offer only inbound and/or outbound IVR customer service, consumers will chatter on social networks of their choice, at whatever time they see fit. Your strategy and technology for monitoring and responding via these channels will necessarily evolve. Technologically, the biggest challenge will be combining all of these communication channels to maintain a single view of the customer, so that social interactions can be tailored to the individual with the same history and context as a voice interaction where an agent has the benefit of a screenpop with all the relevant information.
• Conversations are continuously adapting, and non-scripted. When issues are escalated from automated systems, call center agents still can often work off of a script while social conversations are more likely to go into tangents and often have a different set of rules of (n)etiquette. Agents may need special training, particularly if they are not digital natives.
• New metrics are important. Because of the visibility of social channels, there is now significant transparency into the sentiment about your brand. Appropriate analytics will need to be implemented to separate the signal from the noise and evaluate not just sentiment, but also efficiency, effectiveness and return on investment for your efforts. Reporting tools and dashboards can assist subject matter experts and other stakeholders in assessing this data.
• Timeliness is critical. Much like how channels are customer-dictated, many businesses – particularly large ones – will find there is a 24/7 expectation of rapid responses via the social channel.

Once these core competencies are understood, they are used to enable the three critical activities in the social space: listening, understanding and responding. Each phase incorporates different elements of the aforementioned core competencies. Listening requires appropriate tools and analytics; understanding requires sentiment analysis and the ability to put feedback into context; responding requires accuracy and timeliness.

At Voxeo, our Prophecy and VoiceObjects platforms let you create a social CRM tailored specifically to your business, and provide unified self-service across channels so that you can reach customers in the way they want to be reached, whether it’s via SMS, social media, mobile apps or voice. To learn more about the ways in which consumer expectations are evolving in the social and mobile space and how your business should be responding, check out our whitepaper, “Unified Self-Service: Delivering On the Value Of Multi-Channel Customer Interactions.”

Want to learn how Voxeo can help unlock your communications and deliver a better customer experience? Please contact us!

ECCU, a full-service financial institution and banking resource for churches, Christian schools, missionaries, and other evangelical ministries, selected WT to both streamline their new account opening process and improve their existing IVR.

Online Enrollment & Account Opening

Waterfield’s Online Enrollment & Account Opening solution allows ECCU customers to open and fund new accounts in a simple online process, turning the online environment into a highly profitable sales channel. Built upon Outsystems .NET Agile Development Platform, WT’s solution includes industry-leading risk management, reporting, compliance, and configurability, as well as initial funding via transfers over the ACH network. The new solution provides ECCU with a secure, convenient method to serve their growing membership base within the US as well as missionaries serving throughout the world.

WT’s solution features real-time integration with FIS/eFunds ID Verification to protect against identity fraud and comply with the PATRIOT Act Section 326, 314 (a) and OFAC regulations. In addition to verification, the solution also validates, verifies and authenticates an applicant’s identity at new account opening with ID Authentication. Incorporating all aspects of the membership enrollment and account opening process into one solution, will allow ECCU and members to instantly open and fund new accounts.

IVR

WT was also selected to upgrade, service, and make modifications to ECCU’s existing IVR. WT upgraded ECCU to the most current Convergys/Edify Voice Interaction Platform (EVIP). The new solution provides customers with anytime, anywhere access to account information. WT also built a development environment for ECCU to ensure all changes and modifications are throughly approved and tested prior to deploying in a production environment.

About ECCU

ECCU is the banking resource for churches, Christian schools, and other evangelical ministries nationwide. They also serve missionaries in more than 100 countries around the world. While its business focus is providing financial services to evangelical organizations, the credit union does provide personal banking services such as savings and checking accounts to individual members and their families. For more than 45 years ECCU’s members and employees have shared a commitment to the mission of making evangelical Christian ministries more effective.

Online Banking innovators and Waterfield Technologies client, Kiboo™, is changing the way we learn about our money. Kiboo™ was selected as a presenter for this year’s Finovate conference.

Kiboo™ isn’t an online bank; it’s a place where you learn about your money and your money learns about you. We’re here to help young people and their parents learn the right way to become financially responsible by offering the best, safest, and most secure tools to help you manage your money and reach your goals.

Kiboo™ helps you budget, spend, save, and give in ways that are all customized around you, and what makes you happy.

Getting the things you want, making sure you have the things you need, helping your community, and a more fulfilled financial life are all part of the Kiboo package.

Learn more about Kiboo™ at kiboo.com

Finovate is a unique conference series that showcases financial and banking technology innovation.

New Relationship Brings Together Account Opening, Telephony, & IVR Solutions In Single Integrated Platform

Waterfield Technologies has entered into a strategic relationship with Bank of Internet (BOFI), a San Diego, CA based bank that offers nationwide savings, operating primarily through the Internet. BOFI provides a variety of consumer and wholesale banking services, focusing on gathering retail deposits over the Internet, originating and purchasing single and multifamily mortgage loans, and purchasing mortgage-backed securities.

Waterfield Technologies solutions allow BOFI to open and fund new accounts in a simple online process, turning the online environment into a highly profitable sales channel. The technology includes industry-leading risk management, reporting, compliance, cross selling, and configurability, as well as initial funding via transfers over the ACH network. WT provided solutions will also integrate with BOFI’s existing online banking system so they can easily open and fund new accounts from the online banking environment without re-authenticating their credentials or re-keying their personal information.

In addition to the account opening and funding solutions, WT will also provide an overhaul to the existing BOFI telephony architecture and customer service platforms.

About Bank of Internet
FDIC insured and publicly traded (NASDAQ:BOFI), Bank of Internet offers traditional banking and loan services entirely over the Internet, without making you pay for the cost of a branch network.

Headquartered in San Diego, California, Bank of Internet has been providing service to customers throughout the United States since 1999.

OutSystems’ Award Program Recognizes Latest Agile Application Projects Delivered On Time, On Budget and With 100 Percent User Adoption

SAN RAMON, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–OutSystems:

OutSystems, provider of the industry-leading Agile Platform application development environment, announced today three new winners of the Outsystems’ Agility Award, recognizing accomplishments for projects that were delivered following an Agile process and exhibited real business benefit.

The winning companies are Waterfield Technologies, TNT Express and their systems integrator COOLProfs, and Turismo de Portugal and their systems integrator Normatica.

The Agility Award program was launched at the end of May 2009. The awards are submission-based and recognize teams and organizations who have fully embraced Agile methodologies and iterative, user-oriented development to deliver application projects on time, on budget and with 100 percent user adoption.

In the spirit of Agile, the Agility Awards will be given on an on-going, monthly basis. For a list of all award winners visit http://www.outsystems.com/goto/agilityaward.

Agility Award Winning Projects and Supporting Quotes

Waterfield Technologies, Online Banking Real Time Account Creation & Funding Project: Waterfield Technologies used the OutSystems Agile Platform to develop an application for the real time collection, vetting, funding and opening of accounts for a bank, credit union or other financial services provider. The system interfaces with five external databases and systems for immediate online processing of bank accounts as a result of online or direct mail marketing. The application allows the bank to quickly convert interested prospects into bank customers by simplifying the traditional application process used by many banks which often results in hours of offline processing and review and days of customer delay. Delivered in 12 weeks in 4 sprints.

“Utilizing OutSystems’ Agile Platform and the agile methodology allowed a broader range of participants from the bank’s perspective to be involved in the development process, thereby creating a more effective application once it reached production. Being able to rapidly respond to unforeseen obstacles and the rapidly evolving fraud landscape was essential in the development of this system. Our ability to continue to evolve the application and respond to business change is a testament to the overall effectiveness of the Agile Platform.” – John Marino, President of Waterfield Technologies

TNT Express and their systems integrator, COOLProfs, for the GARD project: The GARD project provides a structured working environment that streamlines and enhances business retention and the development of TNT’s portfolio of global customers. GARD will play a key role in securing TNT’s Global Accounts revenue, which accounts for around 20 percent of the total TNT Express revenue. GARD will also ensure that the global resource pool of contract managers shares best practices and focuses its efforts on the most important issues. Delivered in 7 weeks in 3 sprints.

“The Agile methodology, employed by COOLProfs to build GARD, allowed they system’s key stakeholders, Contract Managers at TNT Global Account Management, to fully participate in the development of a tool which enables them to pool their extensive knowledge and experience towards supporting the key business processes; facilitating account retention and development.” – Hugo Koppelaars, solutions and commercial global account management director at TNT Express.

Turismo de Portugal and their systems integrator, Normatica, for the School Management System project: The SIMPLEX School Management System is a next generation school management solution providing an interactive community portal for stakeholders (management, administration, teachers and students) to enhance the efficiency of school administration and improve resource optimization. The platform covers a school’s diverse operations including Student Management, Class Management, Trainer Management, Course Management, School Facility Management, Meal Plan Management, Scholarship Management and Student Application Management. Delivered in 20 weeks in 6 sprints.

“The agile methodology has enabled great stakeholder alignment and has reduced the traditional distrust that exists in technology projects following a waterfall model. The new School Platform has simplified the administration processes at 17 different Schools of Hospitality and Tourism allowing the staff to focus on excellent education.” – Hugo Sousa, IT Director at Turismo de Portugal.

OutSystems Supporting Quote

“This quarter’s winning applications show the speed and agility that can be obtained using the Agile Platform,” said Mike Jones, agile evangelist and vice president of marketing at OutSystems.

About OutSystems

OutSystems’ Agile Platform is used by IT teams around the world to rapidly develop and manage flexible web applications and business processes using agile methodologies. The integrated platform unifies the two life-cycles of application development and business process management within a single, powerful environment—enabling the automation of business processes and delivery of flexible web applications that are built for continuous change.

Companies use the Agile Platform to integrate, develop, deploy, monitor and change web apps and business processes—delivering business value in weeks rather than months or years.

Introduced in 2001, with over 6,500 installations, OutSystems’ Agile Platform has been honored with multiple CODiE and JOLT awards and is supported by an active community of more than 1,700 developers, 500 certified practitioners and over 50 implementation partners. Its free Community Edition is also available at http://www.outsystems.com/download.

Interesting post on the latest Celent blog regarding bank backlash on Twitter.  We have many clients who are very interested in Web 2.0 and social networking capabilities; this blog has some interesting insight as to the pitfalls of new social “water coolers” like Twitter.

Here’s an excerpt:

A slew of Twitter users have emerged with the sole purpose of tweeting about how much they dislike their bank. I have noticed a growing trend of twitter user names comprised of “bank name” followed by the word “sucks.”  I did a quick search to test my hypothesis and was quite surprised at how many users popped up with this naming convention. I found anti-bank users for BofA, Wachovia, Wells, SunTrust, Chase, TD Bank, etc. It appears to apply to credit unions as well (e.g. Navy Federal). Many of these have just a few followers, while others have a large following. For example, @BankOAmericaSux has over 1,200 followers!

Read the full article here.

Interesting article from American Banker regarding online account opening.

Obviously Waterfield Technologies has a number of offerings around online account opening and would love to talk with your business about how we can assist building a highly integrated, non-standard enrollment option for your organization.

Read the complete article here.

Online account opening is not exactly the frontier of innovation, but its potential as a low-cost engine for deposit growth underpins a new vision for the future of community and regional banks.

“It’s a cost center in and of itself and is almost a stand-alone branch without overhead,” says Stratton Huggins, a vice president of marketing at Renasant Bank, a $4 billion-asset institution in Tupelo, Miss.

Renasant generated $1 million of online account openings in five months starting in late 2008 after it outsourced the function to Goldleaf Financial Solutions Inc. The bank achieved this result with minimal call center staffing and no branch expansion. “It costs a lot less than the $25,000 per month it would cost us to open, provide staff and pay for one new brick-and-mortar branch,” Huggins says.

Smaller banks’ outsourcing of electronic account openings to Andera Inc., Metavante Technologies Inc., Goldleaf and others on a pay-per-transaction basis has thus far lagged the actual innovation. But in the middle-market and community bank segment economic pressures are making the kind of results enjoyed by Renasant a competitive must-have; open architectures make the technology more affordable for small banks.

“The push in this segment had traditionally been to increase fee income through online banking,” says Todd Shiver, the executive vice president of sales and marketing at Goldleaf in Atlanta. “But the banks realize they’re getting hits on their Web sites, so why not use that Web presence to let consumers in the door for new accounts and new deposits?”

Consumer adoption will also drive this trend. Javelin Strategy and Research says 45% of all consumers have tried to open a checking account online. Mark Schwanhausser, a research analyst for Javelin, says there has been some innovation in online account opening during the past year, but the larger trigger for small banks in the near future is an economy-driven need to curry favor with customers by allowing easy access to account openings while deemphasizing branches and call centers.

Market sources say about 600 implementations have taken place in a market of about 16,000 midsize and small financial institutions, including community banks, regional banks and credit unions..

“A paper-based account opening costs about $65 per account, whereas doing it electronically costs about 15 cents per account,” says Charlie Kroll, the chief executive officer of Andera, which has about 260 bank customers in the small to midtier segment.

Anticipating broader adoption in this segment, Andera recently reorganized its product line around levels of functionality and fees, rather than the more complex navigation menus it previously offered.

By letting funds be easily transferred from other internal or external accounts, banks can provide an additional, accessible financial management tool.

“Consumers want to save more in this current economy, and this gives them the opportunity to easily move funds into an account that they want to save,” says Matt Kennedy, the manager of alternative banking services for the $2.5 billion-asset Seacoast National Bank in Stuart, Fla. Seacoast did not disclose the account opening volume gained from outsourcing its online account opening to Metavante but did say the early results of a “soft launch” were impressive enough to prompt a full marketing effort for the initiative.

Susan Hawkins, the president of Metavante’s electronic banking solutions, says the use of open architecture allows integration between front- and back-end systems, permitting affordable straight-through processing. This also yields other benefits, including near real-time transactional capability and identity verifications in compliance with “know your customer” regulations.

“The new account is instantly opened without the consumer having to reapply online,” Hawkins says. “An existing bank customer is going to feel that their bank should already know them.”

(Cincinnati; April 15, 2009) – - – Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in relationship management, announced today it has won a contract renewal to provide comprehensive, end-to-end customer care for the credit card customers of a global Fortune Top 10 financial services company with over 200 million customer accounts. The three-year contract extends and significantly expands the client’s use of Convergys’ industry-leading customer management solutions. One-third of the contract, which is valued at over $195 million, represents new initiatives.

Convergys will expand its multi-channel support of customer credit inquiries and issue escalations in addition to providing e-services website support and a wide range of collections and back office services for the client through its global delivery network. Convergys will also continue to provide protection services for the client through an expanded live agent program of in-bound and out-bound investigative calls. The client selected Convergys over two competitors for this renewed and expanded business, which nearly doubles the Convergys workforce servicing the client from the Philippines and India.

Like many companies in the financial services sector, this Convergys client is actively seeking innovative ways to take costs out of its business and reduce headcount while providing the high level of service its customers expect. Through the years, Convergys’ knowledgeable and professional customer service agents have consistently exceeded performance targets for this client. The excellent operational results demonstrated the compelling value of Convergys’ relationship management services and prompted the expansion of this contract.

“Recent research conducted by Convergys found that 29 percent of credit card customers note quality of service as key driver for satisfaction. 64 percent of all consumers indicate that first call resolution is a key factor in their satisfaction with a company,” said Jim Boyce, Convergys President, Global Business Units. “This client recognizes the challenges it faces and the superior customer service levels it needs to keep its customers happy. On behalf of this client, Convergys will continue to provide excellent customer support services, both proactive and reactive, that will exceed its customers’ expectations.”

With 30 years of customer support experience, Convergys partners with clients to improve operational effectiveness, increase customer satisfaction, and accelerate revenue growth to create a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace for its clients. Our global delivery model enables us to provide support – on-shore, offshore, or near-shore; whether in a contact center or home agent model. We provide our clients with state of the art infrastructure and self-service automation technology to not only increase customer satisfaction but also reduce costs.