Convenience does help the consumer deal with the stresses of everyday life.  One increasingly popular way to bank is on a mobile smartphone.  While it is a great offering, ING Direct Canada has taken their online banking to Facebook.  It is “letting customers who opt in view account balances, history and pending transactions and receive real-time account alerts within Facebook, all in read-only mode.” For financial institutions, security is still a bigger issue in America with the use of social …

Social media is called that for a reason. It is meant to be socializing for people across the Internet. So, as much as many businesses jumped in to try and capitalize on it as a “free” way to get more business, many have found little success in trying to connect with customers/members. When monitoring and uploading new content, it is easy to get distracted by other social media conversations or topics or links and spend way more time than expected! …

With online access so prevalent and easy to use by PC, tablet or smartphone, the shift to self service has meant losing the helpful sales person.  With retail, the advantage of shopping in-store was the ability to ask questions and have someone knowledgeable help you make a decision. Online, the move to searching for reviews or information about the item to buy can be more “convenient” but some risk.  The answer is often offering online chat or instant messaging. Are …

Find ways to let your customers/members easily do business with you and other retailers online to increase your revenue all year long!  Here are some items to consider:  Preferred Partners – Do you have a list of preferred partners that you can create affiliate links to such as Sprint offers a credit union member discount, insurance products, identity theft service, digital safe boxes or back-up options?  You can make revenue off of linking your customers/members to good quality companies who …