Imagine being able to pick up the phone and check the balance on your current account at 4am, or ring your branch to pay the gas bill. Customers of the Royal Bank of Scotland Plc no longer have to imagine, as 24-hour telephone banking was launched in April. The Royal Bank of Scotland is keen […]
Imagine being able to pick up the phone and check the balance on your current account at 4am, or ring your branch to pay the gas bill. Customers of the Royal Bank of Scotland Plc no longer have to imagine, as 24-hour telephone banking was launched in April. The Royal Bank of Scotland is keen to point out that telephone banking is not just an excuse to do a hard sell on services to you while you impatiently wait to speak to someone. In fact, customers can choose to speak to a Voice Response Unit using the telephone key pad to input amounts and confirm transactions and avoid the human touch completely. If you do speak to a telephonist she will deliver a scripted speech that automatically appears on her screen each time the phone rings. The telephone operator then uses on-screen prompts to extract the correct information from the caller and then inputs into the system, the service is then processed and the transaction completed. Telephone banking covers bill payment, money transfer, new standing orders and account balances. The telephone servicing software will also transfer customer records to holding areas. The records can then be automatically accessed to perform follow-ups such as placing follow-up calls or sending records to other departments for further processing. Although the Royal Bank of Scotland says the service is free, customers that want to use the service will have to pay local telephone rates. The software was designed by Early, Cloud & Co and is running on an IBM Corp ES/9000 running MVS.