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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to deliver empirical results on the effects of (out‐of‐band) short message service (SMS) confirmation messages after transactions have been completed in an automated interactive voice response (IVR) telephone banking service. The research seeks to discover if SMS confirmations have a positive effect on customer relationship to furnish evidence for a proposed business case for a multi‐channel banking service. The paper aims to offer results on customer attitude on the role of SMS with IVR as a multi‐channel customer relationship management (CRM) strategy in digital banking.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology is an empirical study based on a controlled laboratory experiment using bank customers as participants. Questionnaires and user observation techniques were employed to collect quantitative and qualitative data, which were analysed using repeated measures ANOVAs.FindingsTransaction confirmation is shown to be important to customers – whether by an SMS message or within the IVR telephone call itself. Customers judged the role of SMS for CRM as highly desirable after monetary transactions; they prefer the version of the IVR banking service that provides (out‐of‐band) SMS confirmation compared to one that does not – and they judged it significantly higher for quality. However, there were no significant differences detected between customer attitude scores for usability of IVR calls involving funds transfers with, or without, an SMS confirmation. As a consequence, the business case was only developed as far as inclusion of transaction confirmation within the IVR call itself, and not extended to use of SMS.Practical implicationsImplications from the results are offered as management insights for the financial services sector in seeking integrated mobile CRM strategies, or “next call avoidance” strategies.Originality/valueThe paper reports findings from a controlled experiment with 116 participants that was based on extension of an existing IVR telephone banking service with which they were all familiar as users.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to deliver empirical data comparing the effects of music with the effects of providing waiting time information on customers who are kept on hold when telephoning their bank. It aims to discover if either has a more positive impact on their affective responses (satisfaction), and to discern if these effects are measurably different to a telephone call without music, or waiting time information, and for different durations of wait. Design/methodology/approach -The methodology is an empirical study using bank customers as participants. Questionnaires and user observations techniques are employed to collect quantitative data which are analysed using repeated measures ANOVAs. Findings -Overall the presence of updates, or music, has a positive influence on satisfaction when compared to just a ringing tone, but for a waiting time of one minute music has no influence on satisfaction. The acceptable waiting time threshold plays a very critical influence on satisfaction with the service. A waiting time above this results in larger differences being observed in the responses to the four treatments, with music and updates both having greater influence. In general, the presence of music and updates are also shown to reduce the overestimation of perceived waiting time. Originality/value -This paper reports findings from an existing UK telephone banking service with 197 customers in three different locations. Implications from the findings provide insights for telephone service managers when choosing between adopting music or updates for managing on-hold periods.