Hi all,
I am meeting the person in charge of the internet infrastructures for Leumi Bank in about two weeks. This is someone who seem ready to listen (though it doesn't sound as if it is going to be easy to convince), and has the authority to order a change if he is convinced.
First of all good job and good luck!
Here is my take for a structured argument:
The argument usually presented in regard for making sub-standart sites that only work for a specific browseris that statistics show that the % of users using this product is so big that the economical incentive to make a standart based site that will work with all standart supporting browser is so low.
This argument is false because it overlooks the the profile of customers which use these "other" browsers:
These people are sophisticated customers. They are often high tech workers and other high paid white collar proffesionals or students that would be such customers in the future.
They tend to both have higher income then the average users and quite often have several bank accounts for various needs, like a business account and so forth. They also quite obviously "Early Adopters" kind of customers - risk loving by nature.
These are exactly the people that have both significant free fortune and tendency for trying out and using sophisticated finanacel products that generate a lot of income to a bank, a lot more then the average user and by nature they are the perfect customers for Internet based services. These are the kind of people who got the first GSm phones, hooked up to high speed Internet and satelite TV or switched to the First Direct service of Leumi. they are also the kind of people that will want to try to acess their bank account from all sorts of mobile devices, from Internet cafes abroad which quite often don't run a run of the mill Desktop OS and therefore do not offer the "common" broser and so forth.
Furthermore, because of these qualities, they are exactly the kind of people which are "trend setters" - they are the first to try out new technologies and products and quite often are the people who their peers, friends and family consult when it comes out to trying and purchasing new products and services. Therefore, their influence is even greater then the actual net financel power that they muster in preson.
It is important to note that Bank Leumi web site WAS compatible to some degree with standart supporting browsers for a long time and the complete lack of support is something new. Combined with the fact that switching banks is a complicated decision that is not taken lightly I believe the Bank Leumi has yet to notice the defection of these kind of customers to other banks and even if they did they probably wont be able to pin point it to the bad service which we are now witnessing. But once the trend will be visible - it already will be too late.
This is further damaging to the bank in light of the fact that its compitetors, Bank Poalim for example and others, DO support standart based browsers and make a point to preserve services to them, so we have somwhere to move to.
In short - the "one person, one vote" system is good for national elections, but it is nothing but misleading when it comes to making decisions of these kinds.
Gilad.
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