IM Technology a Boon for Customer Service

By Maria Trombly | Securities Industry News | Mar. 31, 2003

Instant messaging technology has proven to be a new way for firms to reach out and touch their customers. "We use it in a variety of ways," said Jim Lenz, co-managing director and SVP at Bridge Trading, added. "We use it to pass research back and forth, and we also use messaging for orders-there are some clients that send us orders and we send them reports back. It's worked out well for us. It makes everyone a little more productive."

With IM, Lenz said, a single broker can handle multiple conversations. "It's a lot easier to manage a couple of windows popping up on your screen than phone calls coming over." He added that IM is much faster and more immediate than e-mail, and offers a sense of presence. "I can look and see who's online in just a glance," he said.

The benefits of IM mean that Bridge Trading has a competitive advantage over other trading firms, said Lenz. In addition, Bridge Trading's leading-edge role in working with Reuters to develop the product has created goodwill for the company in the community, he said. Currently, all conversations with customers are logged and archived to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations-but a side benefit could be improved customer service.

For example, if there's a problem with a transaction, the logs can be used to clarify what happened, said Stephanie Ludmer, VP of marketing at Bridge Trading. "It's a new frontier," she said. "We're learning as we go along."

Another company that's using instant messaging to improve customer service is Chicago-based online brokerage OptionsXpress, which recently received a four-and-a-half-star rating from Barron's-the first online broker to attain that rank, the company said.

"We allow our customers to communicate real-time with registered representatives on any issue that they may have," said OptionsXpress president David Kalt.

The company uses a Web-based instant messaging service from New York City-based LivePerson, which doesn't require the customer to download a client.

"We have extensive archiving of every message, every keystroke that is exchanged between our staff and customers, and we can search on it and do all sorts of queries and analysis," Kalt said.

And if an interaction with a customer shows that there's a problem on the Web site, that information can be passed along to the site designers immediately. Phil Bennett, EVP of customer service at OptionsXpress, said his team passes along 20 to 30 such conversations a day. "They actually get a lot of detail for troubleshooting," said Kalt. "We save oodles of time in terms of not having to call people and research it."

For example, he said, a customer recently had a problem with an advanced order feature, in which one order can trigger another. "One of Phil's staff was having problems and getting an error they didn't understand," said Kalt. "After looking at the transcript of the IM conversation, I was able to forward it to one of our developers, and he fixed it and the fix was posted on the site today. That was 24 hours, and that happens on an ongoing basis."

OptionsXpress also serves customers by e-mail and telephone, but finds that the ability to handle multiple IM conversations at once boosts efficiency and lets representatives get to the customers faster. "It's very quick," Kalt said. "Even if we were busy, you would be picked up within 10 or 15 seconds, whereas if you called us, you might have to wait on hold."

LiveHelp's IM also routes customer queries to the representative best able to answer the question. "We're all trained in all different phases, but certain people do better in certain areas," said Bennett. "When a customer hits the LiveHelp button, they're asked to pick a category-new accounts, general information, trading help, funds, and a couple of others. That helps us direct the chats to the people who handle those the best."