|
Press Release |
|||
|
Empirix Benchmark Report on Major U.S. Banks' Web and Voice Self-Service Applications Finds That As Many As One in 10 Transactions FailFirst Study on Quality of Experience Delivered by Banks' Customer-Facing Automated Channels Shows that Poor Self-Service Application Performance Can Lead to Lost Revenue Opportunities and Higher CostsWALTHAM, MA - October 28, 2002 -Empirix Inc., the leading provider of test and performance management solutions for Web, voice and network applications, today released a benchmark report on the performance of eight major U.S banks' customer-facing self-service applications. The report evaluated the availability and speed of the banks' primary automated customer self-service channels - Web and voice-based applications that consumers regularly use to access important financial information and execute transactions.Banks monitored for this independent report included Bank of America, BankOne and USBank. Major findings include: - Failure rates due to poor system performance were as high as 10.4 percent of all voice transactions at one institution, and 7.2 percent of all Web transactions for another. - The bank with the least reliable voice application had failure rates 25 times higher than the best in class performer (Bank of America); on the Web side, the worst performer failed more than twice as often as the best performer (US Bank). - Banks who perform poorly on one channel tend to perform poorly on the other, and vice versa. - There is as much as a 3X difference in system efficiency between the best performing bank (BankOne) and the worst performing. - Generally, the Web channel delivered an inconsistent customer experience, with an average standard deviation of nearly 20 percent of overall transaction lengths. "U.S. banks have invested heavily in Customer Relationship Management initiatives, seeking to improve customer service and reduce operating costs by letting customers serve themselves," said Joe Alwan, vice president of Empirix's Contact Center Performance Group. "However, by monitoring these self-service applications from the customers' perspective, this report shows that most banks are failing to deliver a reliable, efficient, consistent customer experience. Ironically, banks with the worst self-service performance have increased their costs because customers often abandon their self-service efforts and seek out a live customer-service representative. So, the bank pays twice for the same transaction - about 40 cents for the abandoned self-service attempt and then $6.00 or more for the subsequent live call-center agent transaction." The study, entitled The Empirix Web-Voice Benchmark Report: Self-Service Application Performance in the U.S. Banking Industry, measured transaction lengths and failure rates for both Web and voice applications for eight leading banks for a recent two-week period. It is the first such study to monitor and rate banks' performance based on the end-customer perspective of the two primary self-service channels. Among the surprising results of the study was the wide level of variation between the best and worst performers. The banks that performed best, notably Bank of America, BankOne, and US Bank, experienced failure rates of less than four percent for their Web-based applications and less than two percent for their voice-based applications. On the other hand, the worst performers had failure rates as high as 7.2 percent and 10.4 percent for their Web and voice applications respectively. "One of the most interesting aspects of the study was the correlation we discovered between Web and voice channel performance," noted Alwan. "There's a trend toward convergence of these channels, in order to leverage back-end IT infrastructure and to provide customers with a consistent experience regardless of the channel. But this can backfire: when a company provides poor service via one channel, it is likely to provide poor service in the other. This may be because when there's a problem with one channel, customers tend to overflow, and overload, the other to compensate." Study Methodology To perform the study, Empirix opened personal checking accounts at each bank and used its hosted application monitoring services - Voice Watch(TM) for IVR applications and FarSight(TM) for Web applications - to simulate a simple customer self-service transaction. These transactions were executed at regular intervals between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. EST for a recent two-week period. The tests were carefully tailored to accurately emulate the way real customers perform such transactions and were designed to a uniform standard so that results could be compared across companies and channels. For a copy of full report, please visit http://www.empirix.com/web-voice About Empirix Empirix is the leading source for test and performance management solutions that measure, manage, and enhance the performance of Web and voice applications, contact centers and communications networks. Empirix delivers powerful and innovative products and services that improve end-users' Quality of Experience (QoE) while reducing development costs and improving time to market. Empirix currently delivers products, services and support to 3,000 customers worldwide, including Global 2000 enterprises, network equipment manufacturers and service providers. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Empirix has offices throughout the United States, and in Europe and Asia. For more information, visit Empirix on the Web at http://www.empirix.com/ Voice Watch and FarSight are trademarks of Empirix Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Editorial Contact: Michelle Goodall Faulkner Empirix 781.993.8500 mfaulkner@empirix.com top of page |
|||