For large organisations such as traditional retail banks, updating and digitising customer service can be an enormous challenge. There are many moving parts in banks, making it difficult to provide seamless customer service online, in-branch, and over the phone. Additionally, in a rapidly changing and increasingly fast-paced world, customers want their queries solved quickly, if not instantly.
Coupled with this change in customer expectations, contact centre staff are finding themselves under ever greater pressure as waves of global uncertainty drive customers towards the phone lines. The resulting increase in customer service calls is in turn driving up contact centre costs. For instance, 54% of contact centre leaders say that they are faced with high or increasing costs, and 49% report problems with agent turnover and call volume spikes.
In this context, many financial organisations are increasingly looking to automate a large percentage of their customer service interactions using conversational AI. This technology aims to use artificial intelligence techniques to establish customer meaning and generate an appropriate response or action that addresses the customer’s request.
A few banks have built conversational AI technology themselves from the ground up. Since launching in 2018, Bank of America’s virtual assistant, Erica, has held over 1 billion interactions with customers. And, recently, Scotiabank has launched their own in-house conversational AI offering. While these two banks have been successful in their initiatives, the costs associated with building conversational AI in-house can be enormous, and the expertise needed to do so is scarce. These factors put in-house development out of reach for all but the largest of global banking institutions, and even then, there are many disadvantages for trying this at home.
‘Bank of America’s Erica Tops 1 Billion Client Interactions, Now Nearly 1.5 Million Per Day’ (Bank of America, 2022)
Banks that cannot afford the costs of in-house development have often turned to the no- or low-code conversational AI solutions offered by the likes of Amazon, IBM, and Google. However, the solutions that can be built using these platforms frequently prove themselves to be too constrained for modern banking needs. These chatbots, which are often based on rules and keyword-based dialogues, lack natural language support and often result in experiences that fall short of many customer expectations. With these kinds of tools still prominent in the industry, it is perhaps no surprise that only 5% of banks have been able to successfully deploy AI technology at scale.
Fortunately for banks, companies like action.ai are emerging to build bespoke conversational technology for the financial sector. In contrast to one-size-fits-all chatbots, the next generation of conversational AI technology is designed from the ground up to meet the domain-specific needs of the banking sector. These virtual assistants can handle a groundbreakingly wide range of complex customer requests, and they can fulfil the needs of a new generation of customers who want to access the services they need instantly, 24/7.
Automation is in demand
Customers are increasingly coming to expect the benefits offered by customer service automation. Customers want instant support, and they want to be able to access customer service however and whenever it suits them.
Recent data supports these assumptions. A majority of customers (55%) would rather receive help immediately from a bot than wait for a human. In the banking industry specifically this number is even higher at 60%. And, if conversational AI technology were to improve and become more capable of quickly resolving requests, 69% of customers would often or always use a bot.
The best conversational AI technology, offered by specialist suppliers, can meet these growing expectations. Today’s cutting-edge conversational tech can instantly resolve complex customer service requests at any time of day. In the banking sector, these virtual assistants help customers check their balance, replace lost cards, apply for loans or mortgages and report fraud concerns.
These trends are being driven by generations of customers who are already comfortable using digital channels and who are now looking for the next level of convenience. Overall, customer service automation is a win-win for businesses and customers alike. Businesses can save money and improve customer satisfaction, while customers can get the instant support they need, whenever they need it.
No- and low-code tools cannot meet the needs of customers
Despite the availability of superior virtual agents, many financial institutions are still reliant on poorer-quality chatbot technology built using no-code tools. Customers want to benefit from automation, and they want instant customer service. But the current generation of tools simply cannot deliver these demands.
In fact, according to Capgemini, 50% of UK banking customers say that the value they get from AI interactions with their bank is non-existent or less than expected. And, in another study, 60% of customers who have previously interacted with chatbots said the bot was unable to resolve their issue.
It is clear that despite the grandiose claims of the sector, the majority of conversational technology on the market over-promises and under-delivers. This is not to say that there are no good bots or virtual assistants out there, but they are few and far between.
If the conversational AI industry is to succeed, it needs to address the quality issue head-on. It needs to build better products that can deliver on the promise of customer service automation. This is the exact mission driving action.ai.
The next-generation solution
In the banking sector, customer interactions can be especially complex. In the average journey, a customer can find themselves being transferred between multiple departments, and each transfer requiring a lengthy wait on hold. This can be a very frustrating experience, and it’s one that banks are desperately trying to improve.
In order to reduce customer frustration, it is important for banks to streamline their customer journey. This is precisely where the next generation of conversational AI agents can excel. Virtual assistants can help banks unify their customer support ecosystem. Via a single channel over the phone, customers can access almost every aspect of a bank’s services. By collecting and triaging information provided by the customer, virtual assistants can significantly increase the percentage of customer service requests resolved on the first call.
In addition, virtual assistants are ready to engage in human-like conversations with customers. By using advanced natural language processing and automatic speech recognition, virtual assistants can understand complex customer service requests and respond and act accordingly. This helps banks create a more personal customer experience, which inevitably improves customer satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty.
To remain competitive, especially against emergent fintech and challenger bank rivals, banks of all sizes need to move beyond chatbots and invest in next-generation customer experience technology. With future waves of global uncertainty likely to drive further spikes in call volumes, this renewed investment is necessary to meet current and future challenges in customer service.
At action.ai, our goal is to pioneer these next-generation solutions. Our technology far exceeds the capabilities of no- and low-code bots and is able to resolve rich, complex requests expressed in natural language over the telephone. And because our tech is built from the ground up to meet the rigorous standards of the banking industry, our conversational AI technology is highly scalable.
The solutions we provide can handle even the most complex of customer requests within fluid, natural conversations. With our technology, your bank can be confident that customer requests will always be treated with exceptional care and precision.
