How Conversational AI Helps The Banking Industry
Evolving rapidly, conversational AI has practically become a common feature in the everyday life of an average consumer, no matter if they are asking questions to Alexa or Siri or interacting with a customer service chatbot.
This set of intelligent technologies allows software systems to interact with humans using natural language processing. Still, it also enables the software to understand human intent, use data to analyze tone and predict possible conversation pathways and respond in an intelligent, conversational way.
For these reasons, conversational AI has excellent potential for enhancing customer service and the overall customer experience in the banking sector. Read about how conversational AI – a chatbot, virtual agent, or voice assistant can help the banking industry.
Automating processes
Whatever the reason for their interaction with the bank is a complex transaction or a simple question, clients want it to run seamlessly, quickly, and efficiently. By automating some of the interactions using conversational AI, banks can finally achieve this goal. They can answer users’ queries in less time, and be there for their clients when they need them, no matter the time of the day.
Contacting the bank client support service used to mean long waiting lines and eternal phone calls. Now, clients can solve most of their issues in minutes without ever leaving the chat window.
Some of the things clients can do with a conversational AI include opening accounts, creating passwords and electronic signatures, asking questions about financing options, fixed rates, or investment funds – even receiving proactive investing tips.
For example, Eno, Capital One’s chatbot, helps clients access their account information, check their transactions and pay bills. However, Eno doesn’t just answer clients’ queries. It also detects unusual spending behavior, providing insight on a monthly bill or a tip that is too high. This way, Eno also helps detect fraudulent activity and keeps the clients’ accounts safe. As it can understand human natural language and intent, it helps clients solve their problems in a personalized and friendly way, using only text messages.
Faster resolution times
Conversational AI gives clients a new way to connect with their banks. Unlike their predecessors, simplistic chatbots, conversational AI can handle more complicated interactions and find answers to users’ queries more efficiently than a traditional bot would. As conversational AI can keep up with rapid changes, it can quickly come to the right solution. This way, it decreases clients’ frustration and helps them consider different areas they may need help with.
Leaving minor issues for the conversational AI to handle takes the pressure off bank client service teams. Bank reps can now deal with more complex matters and solve the problems faster, thus improving the bank’s overall response time. No wonder that by the end of 2023, companies are due to save 2.5 billion customer service hours by using chatbots to manage menial issues, delivering maximum value with the lowest effort.
Personalizing User Experience
Conversational AI monitors every client’s touchpoint with the bank and collects relevant data, resulting in a thorough insight into the customer’s journey. Capable of sentiment analysis, conversational AI can now personalize responses and predict clients’ wants and needs.
For banks, this could mean that conversational AI can significantly enhance cross-promoting products and services, as it can target clients with hyper-relevant tips and recommendations.
Most importantly, these actions can be done across all channels and in a manner that meets users’ expectations. Conversational AI can provide clients a smooth user experience in line with the brand’s tone, interacting with empathy and reducing any customer friction points, no matter if the interaction takes place on the website, Instagram or WhatsApp.
Cut Down on Operational Costs
Hiring staff to be available whenever their clients need them and meet their requirements can be too expensive. By using conversational AI, banks can save significantly.
As conversational AI can streamline many routine processes 24/7 banks can now cut down on their operational costs, assigning human bank reps only queries that are too complex for a conversational AI to handle.
Banks nowadays sit on an immense quantity of rich client data, which they can put to good use. By exploring the possibilities conversational AI offers, they can overcome many challenges, such as improving customer experience, cross-selling, and retention, while significantly cutting costs.
