Saturday, October 14, 2006

How to web 2.0 your bank - use technology well

Colin at Bankwatch posted a great (and even he admits it, broad) discussion of How to web 2.0 your bank. At first I thought to myself that maybe this could be true for any organization with an online presence, but thinking again I believe that banks are one of the few categories that has really provided really pervasive online interaction with its customers. As much as it could be useful, I rarely interact online with other organizations that I have a long-term customer relationship with.

To really allow banks to run a successful online service, especially a web 2.0 one that provides more interactive, real time, self service applications, the infrastructure not only has to support access to appropriate backend systems, but needs to pull the bank's employees into the interaction in a manageable and auditable manner. SOA, BPM and Rules, often deployed in the backoffice need to be pulled closer to the main point of interaction with the customer. This would enable more automation of decisions, more sharing of customer information between employees in separate customer service centers when an issue can't be handled in one place, and more feedback to the customer for the status of processes that can't be completed immediately.

By using technology more effectively, the community interactions that organizations like banks are afraid of presenting in the web 2.0 world could actually be more valuable and less damaging than online groups complaining about poor customer service and unintelligable call center operators.

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1 comment:

Phil Ayres said...

I like "the bank of the future" post. I had forgotten about that when I wrote this one. Thanks for reminding me.

Phil