Are financial services providers missing out on online conversions?

New industry benchmarking report highlights failure to facilitate person-to-person contact via the web

Financial services providers invest heavily in web sites and search marketing to attract online customers. But many consumers still want to talk to a human representative. A “Call Me Back” facility linked to a call centre can provide this. But research by Rostrvm Solutions shows that in an increasingly competitive marketplace, many financial web sites are missing the opportunity. Ken Reid, Marketing Director at Rostrvm Solutions gives us the low-down.

The Internet has fundamentally changed consumer behaviour. According to eMarketer, more than 37m people are now online in the UK. Some 55% of households have broadband, and people spend an average of seven hours of their leisure a week online (Forrester, 2007). According to the Office for National Statistics, two in five of the adult population have purchased goods online for personal use.

Over half of mortgage borrowers want human contact

In retail financial services, where purchasing is often more complex than other retail categories, web sites play a very significant role in the buying experience. Research published by Yorkshire Building Society in January 2008 shows that 95% of the nation’s borrowers or potential borrowers use the internet during their hunt for a mortgage. Yet more than half say human contact is key, either in a local branch or through a call centre, and preferable to completing the whole process by themselves.

Similar trends apply across other financial services. A study conducted by Webcredible in 2007 showed that while 68% of motorists use the web to research insurance policies, just one in three are willing to buy car insurance online. The phone remains the preferred buying mechanism, with 64% choosing to pay this way. In the words of Ian Carrington, of Google financial services, EMEA: “Keeping up with the financial consumer by harnessing search, and linking it with other online and offline channels and finding the correct balance, is key to winning new business in the internet age.”

Web Call Me Back can increase sales conversions by 250%

The need for retail financial services brands to optimise their web sites to increase consumer propensity to purchase online is well documented. Given the industry’s competitiveness and investment in search engine marketing to drive traffic to their sites, it seems logical for financial services providers to take consumer preferences into account by making it as easy as possible for them to contact a call centre agent while researching products online.

Sales can increase by 40% when consumers are invited to request a call from a live agent while they are online via a Call Me Back facility. And Autonet Insurance has found that the conversion rate for call back business can be about 25%, compared with quotes completed on the Internet at 1%.

Given the increased use of online search – UK mortgage buyers make an average of seven finance related searches (Forrester, 2007) – financial services providers can gain a valuable competitive advantage by offering buyers a conversation with a call centre representative as early as possible in the purchasing cycle.

Mystery shoppper survey results

Rostrvm Solutions wanted to find out how easy it is for consumers to instigate a telephone or live chat conversation while online, particularly via Call Me Back. We commissioned a mystery shopper survey to analyse the web sites of 100 leading financial services providers. We measured how many sites offered Call Me Back, the level of convenience for time-pressed consumers, and how successfully Call Me Backs were completed. We also looked at how easy it was to find a telephone number in the absence of Call Me Back, and whether consumers were offered live chat with a call centre agent.

We found that just 14% of companies surveyed offered Call Me Back, of which only 64% called back within a few minutes of the allotted timeframe. An alarming 29% did not call back when they said they would, and a further 7% failed to call back. Only 3% offered live chat. And perhaps most surprisingly, 8% of those that did not offer Call Me Back did not feature an easy-to-find call centre number for help and support.

Just 14% of financial services sites offer Call Me Back

Of the 14% with Call Me Back, there were varying levels of convenience for online visitors seeking further information. The largest number, 43%, provided a 30 minute or one-hour time window, most commonly inviting consumers to select from a series of options within that time frame. A further 36% gave consumers more choice with the option to select a date and time window within that day – usually a one- or two-hour slot, or morning, afternoon, or evening. Finally, 21% offered a Call Me Back within 24 hours, typically morning, afternoon or evening. This latter approach was least likely to succeed, with two out of three call centres failing to respond within the requested time period.

Online buyers of complex financial services will most likely be spending more than a few minutes on their research. A Call Me Back makes sense because it lets the human agent guide online research – and hopefully help to complete the transaction. Equally important is the fact that consumers may have a finite period to carry out their online research. The option to select a conversation on a specific day and a convenient time slot lets them schedule another occasion to research their purchase. The majority of mortgage providers in our survey adopted this approach.

Creating competitive advantage in price-driven markets

In more price-driven markets, with higher online purchasing propensity, a rapid call back allows financial services providers to engage with online visitors before they move to a competitor site. Not surprisingly, this approach was favoured by motor and home insurance providers. Ideally, consumers should be able to choose either an instant call back or a call at a date and time convenient to them. Few people have the luxury of waiting for a call for several hours.

Not every financial services provider with Call Me Back can guarantee that the call is delivered successfully. More than one in three providers we surveyed were unable to call back at the promised time, or worse failed to call back at all. Sites that promised a call back within one hour or less were successful in achieving that time frame. The reason for their apparent efficiency could be that their technology supports such requests, or that there is less time for requests to be forgotten.

The least successful option is also the least convenient, two out of three providers who offered a call back within 24 hours failed to deliver on that promise, with delays of up to three days (including a weekend). Finally, one in five web sites offering the option to schedule a Call Me Back on a specific day, failed to call back at all.

Only one in four mortgage sites offers Call Me Back

Analysing by sector, Call Me Back was offered by 25% of mortgage providers, 21% of personal pension providers, 13% of car insurance web sites, 12% of home insurance providers, 7% of credit card providers and 6% of personal loans companies. With industry reports showing that more than half of mortgage borrowers say human contact is key, and just two in 10 prepared to complete the whole process online, our study suggests that by failing to offer Call Me Back, 75% of mortgage providers are missing an important opportunity to engage consumers at the point where they are ripe for conversion. Given today’s difficult market conditions this is a serious omission.

In addition, while borrowers who already have a mortgage are more likely to use the Internet for research and quotes than first time buyers, they are also less likely to apply for an online mortgage. Call Me Back may increase their propensity to buy. And of course, personal contact is desirable in a market where lending policies have tightened up; Call Me Back allows agents to assess a prospect’s suitability for a loan and make an instant offer accordingly.

That only 21% of personal pensions providers offered a Call Me Back is surprising, given that many life companies are pouring resources into online analytical tools and market guides. Nor have many car insurers realised the potential of signing up more loyal customers by talking to them. They could learn from Swinton, which recently told Insurance Times that its branches and call centres continue to be the most profitable means of personal lines distribution, as internet customers look for the lowest possible price, squeezing profit margins. “In April (2008) Swinton received more motor quotes offline than ever before,” says Swinton’s Patrick Smith. “When our customers buy products through the internet we follow up with a phone call to see if they have other insurance needs.”

Autonet Insurance increases online sales conversions 25-fold

Similarly, Autonet Insurance Group, one of the country's largest independently owned insurance brokers, monitors customer activity online and initiates a call back to customers who don’t proceed with a quote immediately. Mark Hill, Autonet’s Systems Manager says: “We inform the prospective client that although he or she didn’t proceed with the quotation given online, we can then look for ways to reduce the price using our off-screen insurance rates.”

In one campaign, rostrvm software has been set up to display high priority calls, as defined by Autonet. These calls are a response to customers that have used the Autonet website. Agents are alerted and given a target call-back time of 10 minutes. The agent usually calls the customer back on average within between six and seven minutes. “The agents and sales team are very enthusiastic about the speed in which the software works,” says Mr Hill. “And as everything is commission based, the agents love the experience. The atmosphere and output is nothing short of phenomenal.”

Online purchasing is less mature in home insurance than in motor insurance, offering a huge opportunity for forward-thinking providers to differentiate their service with Call Me Backs. Yet, just two home insurance providers in our mystery shopping survey – Hiscox and MORE TH>N – currently take advantage of this opportunity.

Credit card providers least likely to offer Call Me Back

In the credit card market, affluent consumers with a desirable credit profile are the most likely to consider service as a key component of brand value, rather than price alone. Yet only one in 15 lenders’ sites, in our survey, Abbey National, offers a Call Me Back. Similarly, in personal loans Call Me Back provides an important opportunity to initiate person-to-person contact to qualify prospects and capture a larger share of good quality lenders. Only Barclays in our survey offered Call Me Back.

Live chat offers some of the benefits of Call Me Back, though it can leave people waiting for answers, making them more likely to lose interest and abandon the conversation than with a phone call. Our survey found that just 3% of financial services web sites offer a live chat instant messenger option – Alliance & Leicester (loans), Norwich Union (car insurance), and Zurich Insurance (car and home insurance).

Winning high-value customers in the credit crunch

Given the credit crunch and widespread uncertainty in today’s economic market, financial services companies need to focus on being competitive and profitable. They must understand that the web is a strategic tool and ‘the way that you do it’ online can mean the difference between success and failure in winning new business.

Today’s online customers are becoming ever more sophisticated and demanding in their use of web sites. They expect a high quality of service, which they typically value as much as price and product when buying from the financial services sector via the Internet.

Call Me Back helps differentiate products and increase profit margins on a wide range of products. It lets providers personalise their service, a particularly useful advantage when targeting affluent customers with good credit history who don’t always buy on price. And it helps avoid commoditisation. The ability to engage with customers at a critical point in the buying process, before they go elsewhere, can be crucial in winning their business. It also lets organisations gather key information about customer needs and preferences.

Call Me Back can be implemented in a variety of ways. But whatever the method of implementation, it is undoubtedly a powerful factor in attracting and winning business from existing customers, those currently with a competitive provider, or those who may be making their first online enquiry.

If you would like to download the full benchmark report please click here http://www.rostrvm.com/fst.php