The increasing ubiquity of SMS text messages opens the door to a new era of proactive customer communication. SoundBite Communications has capitalised on the mobile banking boom by recently launching a host of applications tailor-made for the financial services industry. Charles Davis reports

US consumers send 80bn text messages a month on their mobile phones, according to the Mercator Advisory Group and US financial service providers send 12m text messages per day, adds the Massachusetts-based research and advisory services firm.

Go deeper with GlobalData

Premium Insights

The gold standard of business intelligence.

Find out more

Most of the messages are service-related messages permitted by the account holder – such as alerts sent to notify customers when a transaction has occurred or that a current account is close to being overdrawn.

SoundBite, which recently launched an SMS platform offering the ability to provide real-time, two-way text communications linked to the bank’s call centre, hails its Contact Text Messaging Solution as a new channel for retail financial service delivery. The solution leverages SoundBite’s Dialog Engine and Agent Text Portal, features available on the latest 2009 release of SoundBite Engage, is the new version of SoundBite’s multi-channel communications platform.

"Proactive customer communication is the new customer service model," said Alan Berrey, SoundBite’s vice-president for business development, emerging solutions.

"There is a tremendous amount of noise around the channels, and the more options, the more noise. So the solution allows us to do everything from design to execution to measurement and optimisation, driving messages that would have entered the call centre into the text channel."

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData
Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

 

Increase customer loyalty

With SoundBite’s solution, an organisation can reduce its customer support and telephony costs while increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction. Unlike traditional voice-based support, text messaging enables agents to simultaneously support multiple consumer interactions, which increases agent productivity. Texting also frees consumers from long hold times waiting to speak with an agent. Consumers simply send a private text message and look forward to a quick response.

Rather than calling a customer support centre, with SoundBite’s solution a consumer can send a text message using a keyword and a five-digit telephone number, known as a short code. The SoundBite Dialog Engine automatically reviews the message using a set of predefined business rules, and based on the results, the solution automatically responds with a personalised text message.

Messages in need of special attention can be routed to a customer support agent who can access the entire message history and respond using the SoundBite Agent TextPortal. The entire text message conversation can transition from agent to automation and vice-versa, depending on the consumer’s most recent response.

Berrey said that many banking companies offer text-message alerts, but the majority of those solutions are one-way services that fail to take full advantage of what has become one of the fastest growing communication formats on the planet.

A recent Javelin study predicted a decline in the number of households receiving text alerts as they conclude that alerts fail to deliver timely information, are too generic and are too difficult to tailor.

By linking text messages to call centre representatives, Soundbite is positioning its service to address the lack of a human interface, while adding the critical piece of decisioning rules that inform the customer service representative of the history behind not only the incoming message, but the customer history as well.

A survey commissioned by SoundBite with Chacha.com found that 52% of respondents prefer customer support through texting but 35% preferred voice. The key differentiator is that texting does not require a customer to wait on hold, Berrey said.

To succeed, SoundBite must break into a competitive field. A number of players, including ClairMail, Sybase. and Mobile Commerce, offer mobile banking software that integrates web browsers, applications and text messaging. Berrey said Soundbite is the only product on the market offering two-way, real-time communication.

Some observers feel that Soundbite’s solution raises the bar for text message-based customer service.

"SoundBite Contact Centre Text Messaging Solution is a potent new tool for organisations that understand the importance of leveraging consumers’ communications preferences and the ubiquity of the mobile phone," said George Peabody, director of Mercator’s emerging technologies advisory service.

"With text-savvy consumers growing across all age groups, the ability to create a relevant and interactive text messaging dialogue with consumers is a home run for organisations looking to attract and retain valued customers. Reducing long hold times and expensive agent interactions works for the consumer as well as the organisation."

 

Truly valuable experience

One example of how the text message can provide a truly valuable customer experience is SoundBite’s Debit Card Overdraft Opt-In solution, which enables financial institutions to achieve rapid compliance with a new rule announced in 2009 by the Federal Reserve Board prohibiting financial institutions from charging any consumer a fee for debit card overdraft services unless the consumer has consented, or opted in.

With overdraft services, an institution charges a fee for processing transactions when a customer’s account is overdrawn rather than denying the transaction. The new rule becomes effective on 1 July, giving banks a matter of months to secure consumer opt-in for more than 479m debit cards.

Securing consumer opt-in through the mail can be slow and expensive. SoundBite’s solution allows banks to quickly contact consumers, solicit their consent, and update the financial institution’s systems of record with the obtained opt-in information.

The solution can proactively reach consumers through any combination of automated voice, text, and email messaging. Attempts to reach a consumer can escalate from one channel to another – such as from an email to a voice message to a text message – in order to increase reach-ability and response rates. Additionally, once a consumer has provided affirmative consent, the Debit Card Overdraft Opt-In solution can automatically send the consumer an email confirmation, along with information describing the consumer’s right to revoke notification.