At least half of the 12 biggest banks in America are developing or have released live chat capabilities on their websites. Through live chats, customers can receive real-time help with loans, advice on buying a house and pitches for new products and services, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The relatively low cost technology behind live chats caught the interest of banks trying to restore some of the human element of banking lost in the process of bank takeovers and the growth of online banking.

"Banks are starting to see the need to inject that human element," said Tower Group Inc. Senior Analyst George Tubin.

While some banks use call-center employees receive the live-chats, others, like Bank of America, use trained sales staff. "You're not chatting with a customer service rep, you're chatting with a mortgage specialist," says Bank of America's consumer and small-business ecommerce executive Sanjay Gupta.

A few banks are taking the technology further by having pop-up solicitations based on customer's online behavior or by using page pushing, where customers are steered to webpages which both they and the bank employee can view.

As online customers keep an average of 25 percent more in bank balances, giving them more attention can increase the bottom line for banks, according to LivePerson Inc., executive vice president of marketing Kevin Kohn.