Speech Summaries

Frederick S. Leichter SVP, Fidelity Electronic Business Fidelity Investments

Design Track: Three Cross-Channel Design Success Stories

Moderator: Bob Chatham, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

Panelist: Frederick S. Leichter, SVP, Fidelity Electronic Business, Fidelity Investments

Questions And Answers

Q: Can you introduce the various channels that Fidelity uses?

A: We have had great success, especially with our retail customers. Eighty-one percent of our contacts on the retail side are through the Web site. We have an advantage because we have no physical product to ship to people; we will always be an electronic business. Although we have not broken down satisfaction with our IVR, our phone representatives are very happy with their work with customers. One thing we have not been successful with is getting people to work paperless and not receive a statement in the mail. Our customers want traditional archives. But, as Bob Chatham discussed, we cannot force customers down a channel they don't want to use.

Q: Please discuss Fidelity's cross-channel design and implementation.

A: Fidelity is religious about usability testing. We are good at doing this for Web projects, and now we need to do this for cross-channel. This is a whole new space for us, and we are in the middle of figuring it out. Ninety-nine percent of our usability testing is done in-house. We have labs or we do it at client sites.

Q: Please discuss Fidelity's organization in regards to cross-channel.

A: Measurement is very important to us. We measure customer satisfaction, usage, channel migration and cost reduction, usability, new accounts, and transfer of assets. I would say that Fidelity has always concentrated on customer service. We try to leverage technology to get a better customer experience. Currently we keep a site map, which tracks where customers are going on the site. This is for the Web; we do not yet have one for multichannel tracking.

Q: There has been lots of discussion around the front-end stuff. What about the back-end activity, like merchandise management, for example?

A: We store customer information in multiple places, and therefore it is hard to keep the front end accurate. We invest millions in bringing data together, but we must to ensure that our data is coherent.