ZIBEX President and CEO Stephen Russell spoke on Improving Call Center Sales Using Multimedia at a conference in Washington, DC, in June.

The conference on Producing Sales in Financial Services Call Centers, sponsored by the Institute for International Research, was held at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Mr. Russell used a bank case study to emphasize how multimedia can be used to integrate Internet, branch and call center channels.
Banks own Call Centers with product experts and banks own branches lacking product experts. By placing multimedia customer stations in the branches needing product expertise, banks leverage valuable product expert skills to service a number of new locations. Investment services, mortgage loan origination, and insurance product expertise is introduced into traditional and alternative delivery branches via the Call Center. Multimedia-enabled experts not only serve voice traffic coming into the call center, but service video calls from customers using multimedia customer stations in the branches.

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Looking to shorten lines at the teller window plus boost customer convenience, Panama City, Fla.-based Peoples First Community Bank has enlisted a video banking solution from Zibex Corp.
The Zibex Video Banking System, installed in the private banking area of a Peoples branch in Panama City, employs videoconferencing technology. The facility features two video banking stations plus a Diebold ATM and Remote Teller System.
"We believe this video banking service provides our customers with a convenient, private and secure location to complete their banking transactions," according to Laurie Russell, assistant vice president and branch manager at the $800 million bank.
The Zibex Video Banking System includes two components: the Video Teller Machine and the Video Banker Workstation.
Located at the banking outlet, the Video Teller Machine kiosk has a touchscreen, a video camera, a microphone, privacy handsets, a printer and a scanner. An Internet front end also enables customers to log on to the bank's Web site to perform banking functions.
If users want personal assistance from bank staff, they press the Video Call Button on the unit for face-to-face service, such as applying for loans, opening new accounts, checking account balances and ordering checks. Customers use the scanner to duplicate and transmit relevant documents and identification, such as a driver's license.
The ATM is intended to complement the video banking unit by allowing customers to perform typical card-based transactions like cash withdrawals, funds transfers, deposits and balance inquiries.
Zibex's full-motion video banking system employs TCP/IP-based transmission, enabling voice, data and video communication with a bank representative. As users press the multimedia touchscreen, they launch the back-office application that facilitates the sharing of data across the network.
"Customers conduct transactions through a touchscreen, which electronically connects customers to the banking call center," said Addison Woods, chief operating officer of Houston-based Zibex. "A bank representative located at the call center builds rapport with the customer, helps to determine individual needs and fulfills their transactions."
On the call center end, bank representatives use the Video Banker Workstation - consisting of a computer, video camera, printer and speakerphone or headset - to communicate with customers and transact business. Customers see information in real-time as the bank rep types it on the screen, and browsing on the bank's Web site is synchronized with the customer. The rep also electronically prompts documents to be sent and printed at the customer end. All signatures and verification are sent back to the call center, where the transaction is processed, stored and completed.
"What makes the technology unique is that customers do not need to stand in line waiting for an available teller," Woods noted. "The interactive touchscreen lets customers speak with a banker immediately and get full service. It is a great way for banks to continue supporting customer service while also managing their costs."
As illustrated by the Peoples implementation, the Zibex video banking kiosks don't need to reside in a traditional bank branch, Woods added, citing in-store branches. "Banks can have an additional presence at a fraction of the cost needed to establish a brick-and-mortar presence," he said.
- Deena Amato-McCoy

Net-only banks begin opening offices in real world By Scott Bernard Nelson, Boston Globe Staff, 10/18/2000 The Internet kiosks and visual collaboration software featured in Directbanking.com's Boston branch are provided by ZIBEX Corporation of Houston.
The 80-inch TV screen in the window, the popcorn machine on the sidewalk, and the murals on the front wall caught Liz Kovach's attention. But it was the sign over the door that convinced the Hyde Park resident that the newest bank in Boston's Financial District is a different kind of place.
''It's called Directbanking.com,'' Kovach said yesterday. ''So what is it? An Internet bank or a normal bank with normal branch offices?''
Kovach won't be the last Bostonian baffled by the sign, and Directbanking.com won't be the last company to do the baffling.
Quietly, Internet-only banks across the country are searching for ways to give themselves a presence in the noncyber world - including the opening of branch locations the Web crowd once scoffed at. That's because traditional banks are getting savvier all the time about competing with online banks on their own turf.
Directbanking.com's Boston branch, which has its grand opening today, is essentially a full-service operation with high-tech flair. Not all of the five-year-old thrift's competitors are prepared to go that far, but a growing number have some version of ''click to brick'' convergence in the works.
''It's an interesting time in the banking world,'' said Avivah Litan, an industry analyst with the Gartner Group. ''Net banks are becoming more physical, and physical banks are becoming more automated and Net-focused.''
At a conference hosted by the American Bankers Association last month, VirtualBank, WingspanBank.com, and First-E Group all unveiled plans to scrap their Internet-only business plans. None is abandoning the Web, but all three said they are looking for ways to expand their businesses offline.
VirtualBank said it would introduce real-world offices by the end of next year, including at least one in the Boston area. Web pioneer Wingspan said it would start testing different ways to maintain a presence in the 1,800 branches of parent company Bank One. And Ireland-based First-E, which opened its first physical branch this month in London, boasted it may try to become as ever-present in Europe as McDonald's.
Citibank, meanwhile, recently shuttered Web-only subsidiary Citi f/i. And ETrade Bank opened its first physical branch in an Atlanta suburb.
''The Internet-only strategy is dead,'' said Gerard Cassidy, a banking analyst at Tucker Anthony.
''Banks are figuring out that you can't force customers to use a channel they don't want to use, whether that's the Internet, the telephone, the ATM, or the old-fashioned branch office.''
At Directbanking.com's branch, customers will have plenty of channel options.

In addition to a single line for a traditional bank teller and a pair of ATMs, the branch prominently features a half-dozen Internet kiosks that connect to the bank's Web site. Anybody in search of guidance can dial up a Directbanking.com employee on a video conference call for help navigating the site.
One of the kiosks is a full-service operation that goes beyond what's available on the Web site. There, you can scan in your driver's license and any paperwork that requires a signature so a bank employee can authorize mortgages, loans, and other transactions on the spot. If you open a new account, the kiosk dispenses your temporary checks and an ATM card within half an hour of your application.
Also, bank employees are there to answer questions or help with transactions, and conference rooms in the back are available for customers who prefer to sit down with a personal banker.
William Mitchelson, chief executive of Directbanking.com and its parent, Salem Five Cents Savings Bank, said the idea is to give person-to-person service to those who need it and leave those who prefer cyber-service to their own devices.
''The majority of our 6,000 online customers just want the online part, but there are a significant number of customers who want the security of a physical branch location,'' Mitchelson said. ''For them, this is peace of mind.''

Franklin resident Joyce Jobe, who stopped by the Directbanking.com branch on her lunch hour yesterday, seconded that view.
''I would be nervous about any bank that doesn't have a real place I could go,'' Jobe said. ''I need to know there's a person I can talk to if something goes wrong.''
Not everybody, though, is convinced that online banks are dinosaurs.
Lighthousebank.com, a subsidiary of locally owned Brookline Bancorp, opened its Web-only bank in June. Executives there have said repeatedly that people will continue to be attracted to the lower fees and higher interest rates that differentiate Web banks. They can offer those fees and rates, the argument goes, only because they don't have to pay the overhead needed to run traditional branch offices.
But Dick Vague, former chief executive of First USA Bank and cofounder of Web start-up Juniper Bank, said most Internet-only firms are going to have to be flexible and find a middle-ground approach.
''I'm not sure it makes sense to be theological about this, to be purists,'' Vague said. ''I think you have to be open to innovation, and that could take a physical dimension.''
Paul Jamieson, an analyst at Gomez Advisors, thinks it's only a matter of time before the distinction between online banks and offline banks disappears altogether. He said bank branches in a few years, when they exist at all, will probably look more like Directbanking.com's than like traditional bank offices.
''Banks across the spectrum are starting to converge on a concept we're calling the nexus branch,'' Jamieson said. ''It will look like a Charles Schwab storefront, influenced by retail locations like NikeTown or the Gap, and not much like bank branches we know and love now.''
''Directbanking.com is ahead of the curve here,'' Jamieson said, ''but they won't be alone for long.''

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ZIBEX demonstrated its enterprise v-commerce solution to participants at the BAI Retail Banking 2000 Conference and Trade Show held in November in New Orleans.

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