To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/financialservices/0,3800010322,39169926,00.htm

UK banks failing customers online
More than half flunk customer service test…

By Nick Heath

Published: Tuesday 05 February 2008

More than half of UK banks, insurance companies and building societies are failing to properly respond to online customer queries.

silicon.com Financial Services

Get the latest financial services news straight to your inbox. Sign up for the FS newsletter today!

As part of a study into online customer service, a test query was submitted to online financial services institutions. The results found 53 per cent of UK banks did not correctly answer or deal with the query.

The majority of the UK companies received customer ratings of between three and six out of 10 for their web self-service in the study commissioned by IBM and Kana Software.

The Online Customer Service: International Financial Services study of 52 European financial services companies found 35 per cent of German and UK companies did not provide a contact email address on their website and 18 per cent did not respond at all to an email inquiry.

Marchai Bruchey, chief marketing officer at Kana said in a statement: "We were surprised at the poor level of customer service revealed. With internet access in nearly 16 million UK households, there is growing consumer demand for a quality online experience, and more consistency between web and branch."