If Bob Brown had his way, commercial and retail customers would stop coming into branches for service.
Mr. Brown, a product manager at Bank of Hawaii, manages BankPhone, the bank's 24-hour customer service line, which allows customers to access their accounts through a telephone keypad.
The bank uses an interactive voice response system that allows users to input information through the telephone keypad and receive voice responses from the computer.
Using BankPhone, Bank of Hawaii customers can check their balances, transfer funds, and repay loans.
Merchants can also get check and credit card authorizations. Eventually, all customers will be able to do much more with the system.
"The key behind BankPhone is to have the customer hang up saying that they got the information in an efficient manner," said Mr. Brown.
"I want it to be a nonevent that they can take for granted - like the sun coming up."
According to Mr. Brown, BankPhone handles more than 150,000 calls a month from both retail and commercial customers. Between 15,000 and 20,000 of these calls are authorization inquiries from Bank of Hawali's merchant customers.
The bank's 24-hour manned customer service line handles more than 100,000 calls each month. The two systems are linked; if a customer calls BankPhone and then decides to speak to a live customer service representative, the call is automatically switched to a manned line.
According to Mr. Brown, the reason the number of calls to the manned line is still so high is because many customers have not yet signed up for the BankPhone service.
Retail customers are able to access BankPhone for free while commercial customers pay a monthly service fee and a transaction fee for payments, transfers, and check clearing information.
Merchants who use the service to authorize American Express or Discover card transactions are charged 15 cents per transaction. Otherwise, check verification and credit card authorizations are free.
Not only is the system a good source of fee income for the bank, it has the potential to be a cost saver as well.
"The technology has the potential to replace many full-time employees if it is used judiciously and appropriately," said Mr. Brown, adding that the bank has not yet reduced the number of employees because it wants to continue to offer a high level of service.
According to Steve Levy, a senior technology analyst with Hambrecht and Quist Group, San Francisco, the biggest benefit a voice response system is quality of service. Consumers don't have a lot of time to spend on banking; they want to get it done quickly and efficiently.
With a telephone banking system, "we now have the ability to bank from anywhere we want," he said. "Time is no longer a constraining factor in banking."
To make banking even more convenient for customers, Bank of Hawaii plans to expand BankPhone to provide a dazzling array of options - including lists of branch locations, ATM locations, deposit options and interest rates, loan options and interest rates. and more.
Customers will even be able to apply for a loan over the phone. Mr. Brown said the new service will be operational next year.
"Eventually our goal is to provide customers with a single telephone number for all customer service related to their accounts," he said.
Bank of Hawaii is also looking to use the system internally in the human resources department as an internal bulletin board for employee benefits.
The Perception Technology hardware will allow the bank to run systems side by side and automatically route each call to its proper destination. For example, a bank customer who dials into BankPhone will never know that the machine is also running a human resource bulletin board; he will be immediately connected to the customer service line.
According to Mr. Brown, "this whole thing is taking us back 100 years" to a time when a bank knew its customers well.
"When we have a customer call in, we want to be able to take advantage of the knowledge we have about the customer, in order to serve them better," he said.
"The only way we can do this is by harnessing technology to provide a history of the customer's relationship with us and a snapshot of the customer's current and past activity with us."
To accomplish this goal, Bank of Hawaii linked its telephone banking system to its International Business Machines Corp. mainframe computer.
The telephone system itself was supplied by Perception Technology Corp., Canton, Mass. Bank of Hawaii purchased two systems. One is constantly live while the other is used for hot backup.
"It is critical to have a hot standby with the volume of calls we are getting, said Mr. Brown. "We don't want to lose any calls."
According to Larry Potter, manager of technical support at Perception Technology, the system can handle 96 callers at one time.
The bank regularly conducts blocking studies to determine how many callers cannot get into the system.
"The studies tell us how many people are blocked from our service; we are then able to determine when we need to increase lines," said Mr. Brown.
Currently, customers have access to BankPhone through three interstate toll-free Watts lines as well as several local lines.
"The chance of not getting through on BankPhone even in peak time is very slim," Mr. Brown said. "It is very rare for a caller to get a busy signal."
The bank also uses internal reports on a daily basis to determine if the system is reaching its load factor.
The hardware allows the bank to add and handle more lines without any systems degradation. "We are able to easily add lines and keep up with the volume," said Mr. Brown.
The hardware also offers various features that would allow the bank to expand its system in the future.
"We wanted a system that would allow us to give us call statistics, multilingual capability, and audio management", said Mr. Brown.
"Voice technology is one of the component pieces of overall teleservicing. The point is that service has come to be the only differentiator," he said. "If we are not providing the service someone else will, and we want to be there first."
