As one of India’s major commercial banks, UBI maintains an extensive network of 1,365 branches across the country. The Bank wanted to offer their customers a cost-efficient and convenient alternative to enquire about its suite of financial services. With the proliferation of mobile phone subscribers in India (149.5 million in 2006), SMS is the ideal medium for UBI to reach new—and engage existing—customers.
“Enabling our customers to enquire via SMS about our different types of services, such as loans or opening new accounts, frees up a tremendous amount of time for our customer service officers to perform more value-added services,” said Swapan Biswas, GM, Marketing and New Initiatives, United Bank of India. “In addition, this mobile enquiry service ensures customers receive timely information —without the need to dial a call centre, go through a tedious interactive voice response system, or make a physical trip to the bank.”
Upon sending a service keyword to shortcode “6365,” UBI customers—regardless of their mobile operator—will receive an acknowledgement message via SMS, as well as a telephone call from UBI’s Relationship Manager informing the customer about the various financial services available from the Bank.
All leads generated via SMS are captured by the Sybase 365™ Application Manager —a secure, user-friendly, and cost-efficient application platform directly linked to UBI’s central database system. Customer details recorded include name, mobile number, date of SMS enquiry, the mobile operator to which they are subscribed, and which part of India the SMS is sent from. This information is captured through a Web portal, and is made available in an online report for viewing and better customer relationship management.
“We are delighted to be chosen by United Bank of India as a strategic partner in their quest to embrace mobility,” said Matthew Talbot, vice president of Sybase 365 in Asia. “In today’s increasingly mobile environment, the potential for mobile banking is vast, from simple alerts and marketing campaigns, to two-way banking services that enable banks to interact with their customers in a new, real-time manner. Banks can also use this functionality to deliver information to their customers anytime, anywhere. For banks, mobile banking can be crucial in notifying a customer of a potentially fraudulent account transaction—or simply used as an avenue for customers to pull service information.”
Sybase 365 provides mobile banking services for major banking customers around the world. -Sybase
