Yorkshire Building Society Go Extra Mile With Live Chat

Lender introduces live chat and simplified mortgage calculators

04 February 2011 | Mortgages | Mark Pavan

Mapa researchers recorded around 25 changes whilst completing the latest Mortgages Dashboard update. Yorkshire Building Society, which has been steadily improving its website in recent times, has continued this trend with the introduction of live chat and easy access to simplified versions of its mortgage calculators.

Live chat can be a personalised way of responding to customers' specific questions and queries, which might not be otherwise available on the website i.e. in FAQs. It can act as an early warning to issues with new website features and changes. Its usage can be coordinated with updates to the website and as not many providers offer this service, it can act as differentiator that many customers will find very helpful during their website visit.    

As well as being able to go to the ‘Mortgage tools’ section to use the ‘How much can I borrow’ & ‘How much will I pay’ calculators, customers are now also able to use simplified versions on the right hand side of product pages. A pop-up will display the result of the calculators and customers are provided with a link to use the full calculator if they wish to. This change helps the visibility of these calculators and may increase their usage before customers’ begin their online applications.

Both of these changes are customer-friendly, helping to improve service and may put pressure on other providers to follow suit.