Credit Card Online Account Servicing

An important aspect of the services that credit card issuers provide for their customers is account management or the procedures consumers need to take in order to maintain their accounts. Common account servicing activities include monitoring transactions, checking a balance, making a payment, or disputing a charge. In an effort to drive more customers to the web to service their credit card accounts (and reduce the significant costs of managing telephone calls), issuers are looking for new incentives to encourage this behavior. In this issue of Cardbeat, we re-examine current consumer online management behavior, reasons consumers do not perform certain servicing tasks online, and opportunities for issuers to increase consumers’ use of this channel.

Data included in this report were gathered using a web survey administered to 504 credit card users in the U.S. during March 2009. This topic was last addressed in the April 2006 issue of Cardbeat; however, in this issue, we expanded the scope of that survey to also explore consumer perceptions of specific types of credit card online servicing activities (e-statements, online bill payments, and e-mailed account alerts) and examine consumer reactions to the possible introduction of a fee for receiving paper statements.