Visa EU is investing £1.4 million in a new customer support system from IT group Getronics.
The new service, which will be deployed across Visa's recently introduced Web-based customer support system - dubbed Solutions - will enable member banks to raise questions online and then access and track the progress of them. Work on the enhancements starts immediately and is due to go live in early 2003.
Visa EU receives approximately 9000 communications from its member banks each month, either by telephone, e-mail, fax or letter and this figure is growing at around 15 per cent year on year. These communications vary from the very complex to the very basic or pure informational requests, such as looking up the identity number for a particular card programme.
Visa EU launched the Solutions programme in October with the aim of automating mundane queries. The card organisation says Solutions currently receives 1000 hits a month and has led to the freeing up of approximately 300 man hours of staff time per month.
John Chaplin, executive vice president for Visa EU says the new system commissioned from Getronics will further automate the process, reducing response times and freeing up staff to deal with more complex queries.