Barclays, the UK's third-largest retail bank, has selected software from Transversal, a UK-based developer of intelligent e-service technology, in an attempt to increase the bank's online sales.

Barclays is the first bank in the world to implement Transversal’s Sales Engine software tool. According to the vendor, Sales Engine is the first online customer service solution able to serve up targeted advertising and sales promotions in response to naturally phrased questions asked by customers via an organisation's website.

Visitors to the Barclays website who elect to use Transversal's Ask a Question feature are served detailed and classified advertising alongside answers to their queries. A feature of the system is that the bank's adverts change automatically depending on their relevance to customer questions, or to products and services that the bank is looking to promote.

The Sales Engine system went live on the Barclays website during August. In an interview with BMI, Dee Roche, head of marketing at Transversal, said that during the first month of its operation, the bank experienced web click-through rates of 13 percent, a significant figure given that banks frequently encounter click-through rates in the region of 1 percent.

This targeted advertising is designed to increase the bank's cross-sell ratio and grow online sales of Barclays' products. If, for example, a customer asks a question about foreign currency accounts, the website will display web banner advertisements and offers relating to travel insurance, the use of debit cards abroad and foreign mortgages.

The Transversal Ask a Question facility has been a feature of the Barclays website since early 2005.

"We appreciate that our customers are all individuals and by using the Transversal Sales Engine we are able to personalise content to exactly match their needs, based on their own questions," Barnaby Davis, Barclays electronic banking director, told BMI.

"Sales Engine delivers invaluable information on what our customers are interested in, where it matters most - at the point of purchase."