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Statistics show that nearly 40% of customers worldwide prefer interacting with chatbots over interacting with customer service agents. When used smartly, chatbots can revolutionize the customer experience. But with so many options available, how can you make sure you choose the right chatbot for your bank?
Before you start shopping around, it's important to understand exactly how conversational AI can benefit you and your customers. Knowing what you want to get out of chatbot technology can help you make an informed decision, and invest in a chatbot that will support your business strategy.
Don't get bogged down in sales pitches or slogans. Keep reading, and we'll tell you exactly how chatbots are changing the world of banking – along with what your bank needs to do to keep up.
What Is a Chatbot?
A chatbot is a computer program that can respond to interactions like a human. It can both understand and simulate human conversation.
The most basic chatbots can respond to simple queries with simple, single-line responses. However, current technology allows for much more sophisticated chatbots. Today, it's common to find chatbots in use as digital assistants all over the internet.
Some chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence, sometimes called conversational AI. In that case, chatbots can learn from their interactions with customers, refining and developing their speech and vocabulary as a result. They can even remember previous interactions in the same conversation, drawing on context to provide smart answers without having to ask for clarification.
These data-driven chatbots are powered by the very latest in AI technology. They use natural-language understanding (NLU), contextual neural networks, and deep learning. The end result is so sophisticated you can easily forget that you aren't talking to a human.
The Benefits of Chatbots for Financial Institutions
So why use chatbots for banking? It's a simple question with a lot of great answers. These are just a few of the reasons why chatbots can make a real difference to the customer experience at your bank.
24/7 Support
It's obvious, but it bears pointing out: customer service agents need to sleep. It's impossible for them to be available to customers 100% of the time. Chatbots, on the other hand, are always available and always on call.
Whenever a customer needs assistance, a chatbot can step up and help. It means customers aren't left hanging until business hours resume in the morning – they can access the solutions they need right away. And if a problem turns out to need a human touch, a chatbot can set up a call-back from a customer service agent.
For your bank, the benefit lies in cost reduction. 57% of companies agree that chatbots generate massive returns on investment, enabling you to save money on personnel. With a chatbot, you don't have to pay customer service agents to work extra shifts – you can trust the chatbot to hold the fort until business hours resume.
Ease Customer Service Workload
Most customer queries are easy to solve. Often, customers just need to be pointed in the right direction – a process which only takes seconds, but which can interrupt the workflow of your live service agents.
With a chatbot, those simple questions don't have to break the concentration of your customer service team. The bot can respond to them with no fuss, without adding to the queue of support requests in need of human assistance. And if the chatbot does encounter a problem for the live service team, it can hand the customer over easily.
That means your customer service agents can work more efficiently on the problems that really need their attention. Even better: your customers in need of live help won't have to wait so long for a response.
Interactions Available Everywhere
If a chatbot is properly integrated into your bank's website and mobile app, customers won't have to go far to find it. It will be able to offer help and support no matter where they are. Whether your customers are using text or voice, your app, or your website, the chatbot will be available for them to use.
Most importantly, customers won't have to take any extra steps to find the chatbot. They won't need to waste time looking up a number, calling a help center, and waiting around on hold.
That convenience is worth its weight in gold for customers. It shows that your bank really prioritizes customer experience.
Privacy and Security
In banking, data protection is crucial. Customers want to be sure that their personal information is in safe hands. After all, if your bank experiences any kind of data breach, their money could be on the line.
Fortunately, any good chatbot will have rigorous privacy protections in place. When customers use chatbots to request or change sensitive information, they can always be confident that their data will stay secure.
Chatbots can even be used to keep customers aware of common attempts at fraud. This awareness-raising can help minimize customer risk.
Customer Feedback Collection
All too often, customers won't engage with polls or surveys. Because of this reluctance, it can be difficult for your bank to get the feedback it needs in order to improve.
But chatbots make it so much easier for your bank to gather customer feedback. They can ask customers directly for feedback at the end of an interaction so that customers can comment on their experiences organically.
Chatbots can also send those responses to another AI, which can aggregate customer comments into data you can use. That data could reveal areas for improvement, or even solutions to recurring customer problems.
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What You Can Do With Chatbot Integrations
Integrating your chatbot with your bank's main online platform is essential. With your conversational AI integrated properly, your customers will be able to do so much more. Here are just a few of the things an integrated chatbot can help your customers to do.
Open a New Account
For customers looking for an online banking solution, your chatbot might be the first interaction they have with your bank. With a sophisticated chatbot, it's perfectly possible for customers to open an account without any human involvement. And if human involvement is needed, a chatbot can hand the process over to a live agent.
A chatbot can also make a great first impression. It speaks with your brand voice, delivers pleasant customer service, and draws on in-depth documentation to show a complete knowledge of your banking processes.
Not only can a chatbot help a customer to open an account – by representing your bank and offering a warm welcome, but it might also actually encourage them to do so.
Request Information
Online banking platforms can vary between banks. For new customers, that can lead to confusion. A chatbot can streamline the process of discovering a new online banking platform, offering guidance and support to customers where needed.
Customers can also use chatbots to request information about their bank accounts. Chatbots can provide customers with a simple update on their current account balance, a list of recent credit card purchases, or a downloaded copy of a new bank statement.
This means customers won't spend so much time trying to navigate complicated menu systems. It streamlines the process of online banking, improving customer experience.
For instance, Banco Comafi, an innovative bank from Argentina, increased the number of automated queries by more than 500% with 95% effectiveness after implementing multiple integrations on WhatsApp. With these integrations, they provide customized information about:
- Account balances and most recent account transactions
- Alias/Uniform Banking Code (CBU)
- Alias/Uniform Banking Code (CBU)
- Upcoming closing dates and expiration dates of cards
- Latest account and credit card statements in PDF format (which can be viewed within the same application and can be downloaded to the device).
The chatbot can also recogize the user’s name and active debit cards. Learn more about their story here.
Update Personal Information
Requesting information is one thing, but what about updating it? Your customers' circumstances may change during their time with your bank. Updating personal information across lots of platforms can be frustrating – so it's important to make the process as smooth as possible.
Chatbots can carry out these basic functions for customers. Using chatbots, it's possible for customers to update addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information. They can even change their PINs when necessary!
These simple changes don't necessarily need a fully-fledged conversational AI. A transactional bot, designed to complete straightforward tasks, may be enough to streamline this process for your customers.
A Better Customer Experience for Your Bank
To improve the customer experience at your bank, consider Aivo's conversational AI. It's powered by Aivo's own engine, which draws on multiple cutting-edge AI technologies. It guarantees clear, helpful, and human-seeming interactions, no matter the context.
Our chatbot can parse errors, identify the intention behind questions, and deliver helpful answers every time. When it can't resolve a question, it will learn from the interaction. And it will always keep conversations feeling natural and human, no matter what language your customers speak.
Why wait to give your customers the service they deserve? Book a demo with our team and see how to integrate conversational AI into your business.
