Get chatty: Banks and their customers have a common friend

Industry   |   
Published April 24, 2017   |   

Chatbots are taking over the world. Banks have started investing in this intelligent chatty friend, to make their customer conversations easier and more efficient.
Human – human to human- machine? …. Better? Safer? Faster?
What are chatbots?
Chatbots are programs that interact with customers usually over the internet to provide insights, services, and products. Rules power certain chatbots and some are powered by artificial intelligence. With the growing enhancements in the field of artificial intelligence and deep learning, chat bots can also predict based on interferences drawn from human behavior.
chatbot
Why chatbots?
“~90% of our time on mobile is spent on email and messaging platforms.” — Niko Bonatsos, Managing Director at General Catalyst
Usage statistics suggest that people have moved from social media to messaging platforms. Since the inception of a chatbot platform on Facebook Messenger, over 11000 chatbots have been added.
Banking and chatbots:

  • LESSER SUPPORT COSTS:

The introduction of this man-machine interaction will reduce time and cost involved in employing manual labour to service call centers through the day. This one program can serve various customers simultaneously, across the globe.
mobile

  • CUSTOMER DELIGHT:

Imagine if you do not have to suffer this anymore: “ For English press 1. For account related queries press 2.” The added advantage is, you can finish your conversation in seconds. No more queues, no more waiting time, no need to hold your patience together anymore. Just to get a piece of information from your bank. So that means better customer satisfaction and hence delight.

  • PERSONALISATION:

A chatbot integrated with machine learning can understand customer behaviour and consumers’ preferences over time. This helps in providing more personalized choices. For example, chatbots can learn about a customer and deliver solutions and offers relevant to that person. In today’s world, personalization has transformed to a necessity, from merely an option to preserve customer loyalty and retention.
Not only this. An improved machine learning algorithm can also help banks get into the arena of predictive analytics. The data gathered through chatbots can be used for more efficientcross-selling and upselling activities, fraud detections and also proactive alert messages.

  • IMPROVED TRUST:

A recent research (Banking Tech) suggests that 25% of users find it easier to share sensitive information with a chatbot rather than a human being. It is time consuming, difficult and sometimes even a wary decision to provide such information to a real person. Time and again we have received messages from banks saying that they do not ask for sensitive information on call. This could serve as a better trust worthy counterpart, if privacy settings and algorithms are in place.
HDFC, YES bank and many other leading banks in India are investing in this simple, yet brilliant technology. We’re just at the tip of the iceberg. Chatbots seem poised to grow exponentially. With messaging apps being the platforms of the future, chatbots will be the preferred channel to access enterprise services.
Chat bots - infographic