As U.S. Bancorp upgrades its mobile banking offerings, it is also stepping up its use of mobile data business intelligence to target sales and personalize customer service.
The Minneapolis company is deploying a new suite of analytics programs from Adobe Systems Inc.'s Omniture to cull and assess data from the Mobile Money platform. U.S. Bancorp is scheduled to transition its mobile systems to the Fiserv Inc. platform by November.
Omniture will replace Webtrends analytics at the $308 billion-asset bank. Mobile Money replaces the bank's custom-built mobile Web platform and a Firethorn system that powers the bank's mobile app. The project also involves U.S. Bancorp installing Fiserv's Corillian to replace the company's custom-built online banking platform.
The moves reveal the company's ambitious designs on mobile banking, which may by next year include location-aware services, said Niti Badarinath, U.S. Bancorp's senior vice president of Internet and mobile banking strategy. U.S. Bancorp plans to use Omniture to garner complete, in-depth cross channel views.
"Anything you could do on the Web you will be able to do on your mobile browser, or a mobile app, and we will know everything you've done in both channels," Badarinath said.
Mobile analytics are a key focus, not only because they will eventually track on-the-go personalized offerings, but also because of increasing evidence that mobile banking features overall can drive customer decision-making.
Studies show banking with handhelds boosts retention rates and leads to more transaction completions on average than PCs.
"Many companies who optimize for mobile traffic find that conversion rates are proportionally higher versus the traditional Web," said Joe Stanhope, a senior analyst in customer intelligence at Forrester Research. That's primarily because PCs enable more exploring and easier Web surfing, and thus more distractions.
Badarinath said U.S. Bancorp's move to Mobile Money and location-based offers will allow it to build an analytics environment that tracks customers' geographic location along with other usage data.
Banks hope that fees assessed on mobile banking services such as proximity discounts, person-to-person and same-day payments, fund and wire transfers, and remote deposit capture will boost retail revenue and reduce call center volume.
U.S. Bancorp will use three Omniture modules: SiteCatalyst for clickstream analysis and collecting customer activity on mobile and Web channels; Insight, a rules-based analytics engine that monitors transactions in real time or batch to determine customer product preferences; and Test and Target, which aims to help banks develop strategies by testing offerings and prioritizing them by projected sales conversion rates.
The top mobile analytics providers include those that focus on customer behavior, like Omniture, comScore, Google Analytics, IBM (Coremetrics and NetInsight) and Webtrends. These vendors have added mobile Web and mobile application analytics to their existing Internet analysis tools.
There are also niche specialists that measure primarily mobile apps and vendors that concentrate on measuring mobile Web sites.
The mobile app development tool providers Kony Solutions and Netbiscuits offer analytics that banks can code into the application as it is being developed. Specialists in application optimization, monitoring or security and troubleshooting such as Eqatec and PreEmptive Solutions also track usage patterns.
Big is not always better, however, and specialization can mean a lack of across-the-board expertise.
"The niche providers were out there first; they know the devices really well," said Greg Dowling, vice president of mobile strategy and development at Semphonic, a Web analytics consultancy in Novato, Calif.
Banks are uniquely positioned to tap strategies from tracking the efficacy of customized, targeted mobile services.
"Banks are lucky," Stanhope said. "Because their customers authenticate themselves, they know if I looked for and found an ATM; they also know which ATM transaction I did. So they can track exactly what impact any changes would have."
