Data software that can help improve retention rates. (New Products).

Consider, for a moment, the plight of those really big banks. Bank of America, for example, issues thousands of credit cards every year. Its customer service retention unit handles about 80,000 retention-related calls every month, and these calls are fraught with danger. Somebody on the bank's end of those calls must make an instantaneous decision as to the right way to treat every one of those callers. Will they respond to a more attractive interest rate, to a high debt ceiling, to an opportunity to move up to a gold card? What wilt keep them happy, keep them around, and--most important--keep them profitable?

In 2000, Bank of America began using HNC Retention Optimizer to help keep its retention problems under control. The results (say HNC) are impressive: a 33 percent increase in the acceptance rate of retention offers, a 5.6 percent increase in saved accounts and a 13 percent reduction in voluntary attrition.

Meanwhile, customer balances increased, on average, by $120, and 17 percent more balances were carried at nonpromotional APRs. The profit increase on retained accounts averaged $1.84 per account.

Retention Optimizer is a component of HNC's Opportunity Suite Group. It is designed, the company says, to use your existing customer data as the basis for modeling consumer behavior and predicting profitability. The program lays out a hierarchy of offers for each customer, using the data that you've previously collected, while taking into account your profitability concerns and other business constraints.

A caveat: in its present state, at least, Retention Optimizer isn't for everyone. It's designed, says Dan Rich, director of product marketing and product strategy, for "high transactional environments," which describes Bank of America pretty well, and the company isn't particularly interested, at present, in operating as an application service provider.

What about price? HNC levies an installation charge and then also assesses each installation on the basis of transaction volume. Consulting services are

also available, at additional cost. For more information, go to www.hnc.com.