10 amazing ways chatbots can improve customer engagement in banking
The best service a bank can offer to its customers is one that’s meaningful, engaging, and personalized. Chatbots in banking have huge potential for customer engagement. It gives customers 24/7 access to support and banks can make great use of AI and improve customer engagement to enhance the experience and improve retention.
In fact, you can easily measure the ROI of chatbots by conducting a survey, collecting feedback, and getting a sense of how happy and satisfied your customers are. All in all, we can say that customer engagement is crucial for every business. It is crucial in every domain that you visit and chatbot in banking is not far behind.
These are promising numbers and show great credibility in AI. It clearly illustrates how chatbots can improve customer experience in the banking sector.
There is, however, one condition that even tech experts recommend. If a bank wants to incorporate a chatbot, then they must try it out internally to understand how reliable and compatible the technology is with their services before deploying it.
Customer engagement chatbot in banking
Once banks make the decision then comes the time to decide how reliable it will be for the customers. Additionally, banks have to measure the ROI of building and managing a fully functional chatbot. While numerous companies are suggesting that chatbots have helped them save a substantial amount of money, in the end, what matters is how well the bot can manage and engage customers. The key here is not only to save money but to provide a seamless experience.
After all, the banking industry doesn’t need a half-baked self-help customer software. It will only lead to unresolved customer issues that will come back to a customer support executive. So what would be the point of having a chatbot, right?
Good that we are in an exciting time, witnessing all kinds of technological advancements. As a result, banks are also leveraging this fact and trying to integrate with chatbots to increase efficiency.
Pain-points in the banking industry
- Long waiting times
- Inconsistency: Different customer service agents give different answers (41%)
- Customer service agents don’t know the answer (34%)
- Can’t find the answer on the website (31%)
- An exponential increase in the number of new applications
Many of them can be resolved with the right implementation and will bring better customer satisfaction. Hence, better business results with lower operational costs and better customer retention.
4 reasons why banks need customer engagement chatbots
1. Pushes Information
If you were wondering why I shared my bank statement misery right in the beginning, here’s why — Instead of sending out emails and SMSs for statements, upgrades, policy changes, etc., and leaving the customer bewildered rather than intrigued, banks can automate the entire process through personalized push notifications sent via chatbots. This can end with — “Want to know more?” — to which a customer can say — ‘Yes’ — and find everything there is to know, at one single place.
A simple, “Hey, your salary is in. Go have fun!” sounds way more pleasant, encouraging, and personal than, “Your account XXXX has been credited.” What more reasons do we need now?
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2. Answers Queries
Bank executives primarily have 2 jobs:
- Sell plans
- Solve customer queries (and eventually use it as leverage to, guess what, sell more plans)
Do selling plans generate revenue for the bank? Yes. Does solving customer queries generate revenue for the bank? No.
Banking chatbots can take over the mundane, non-revenue-generating tasks and support multiple customers at the same time. Moreover, every time there is a change, chatbots need to be told only once, unlike training executives repeatedly to ensure that they deliver the right message.
Eg: Swedbank’s Nina takes care of service calls while the employees do the sales calls to add more value to the company.
3. Saves Time
As much as we hate to admit it, we have time but it’s never enough.
A new visitor must be saved the hassle of going through the bank’s entire website to find 1 piece of information. An executive doesn’t have to entertain queries when a chatbot can do it uninterruptedly without getting bored, seeking motivation, taking breaks, or demanding an appraisal.
4. Builds Economy
On one hand, I was ravaging my hard-earned money, and on the other:
- BOA’s chatbot, Erica, used by 25 million users, was assisting its customers to invest and save taxes
- Wells Fargo’s chatbot was guiding its customers to the nearest ATM
- JPMorgan’s COIN was evaluating complex legal documents for its customers with chatbot analytics
- Barclays Africa’s chatbot was extending its services to Twitter and Facebook Messenger for better connectivity
- AmEx’s chatbot was checking up on its customer’s account balance, upcoming bills, purchase history, spending habits, and financial reminders
The bottom line is, chatbots automate tasks, whether simple or complex. What’s important is that enterprises develop bots using a platform that is capable of developing both. With a truly enterprise-grade chatbots development platform, the possibilities of what a bot can do are endless. Such platforms could turn out to be the real holy grail of customer service excellence for both customers and bankers. Global banks are embracing AI technology and are excited to make it a part of their digital strategy in the long run.
10 ways chatbots improve engagement in banking
Banking chatbots are emerging as the preferred customer support platform. It is useful for financial service providers because they facilitate 2-way communication with machines using natural language commands. As per the latest data, close to 70% of customers prefer contextual conversations with chatbots. Since they can find answers to their questions much faster and the interactions are much more seamless, they would always pick bots over agents.
Here we discuss 10 ways in which chatbots can improve customer engagement in banking.
1. Personal banking
Delay in services and lack of personalization are 2 of the biggest problems that most of the customers face today from the bank. However, times and things have changed now. Banks are opting for chatbots to create a personalized banking experience. Banking bots are reducing the waiting time and other related paperwork. As a result, customers get faster and personalized services that save a great amount of time for both parties. The customers no longer have to visit the bank every time they need an account of their expenditure. Now chatbots can effectively provide the required account statements to the customers.
Banking Chatbots can also provide useful information that is related to the latest bank schemes, KYC, and resolve customer queries. The best part is that customers don’t have to wait for someone to attend to their queries. Chatbots are already trained to manage these queries and provide relevant support.
2. Automated customer service
Banking bots are proving to be extremely helpful in providing seamless customer service. In fact, chatbots are also helpful in analyzing data, detecting fraud, and capturing data. Automation enables the chatbot to inform the user about every transaction to prevent any form of miscommunication or mismanagement. This helps in preventing any kind of fraud by identifying possible discrepancies right from the initial stage. Users are always on top of their account activities because they receive notifications simultaneously. The bots can assist the customers at any time as they are trained to grasp their queries and provide the best possible solution, simultaneously making them feel like they are interacting with a human.
The bots also aid the banks to address any customer complaints by analyzing the grievances of the customers and providing important insights. They also help the banks improve their services. It is also essential in improving product offerings.
3. Clear customer feedback
Customer feedback is one of the most important elements of any banking service. Intranet-based chatbots help banks get more specific customer feedback. It can help them improve their services. The staff can gain information about the shortcomings and the management can offer helpful solutions. This further improves the experience and increases efficiency. This indicates that the situation is favorable for employees, management, and customers as they all are in a much better position at work.
4. Personalized marketing experience
Even though banks provide a plethora of services to their customers, not every service can have the correct taker for it. Thus to provide the customers with personalized services, banks can accomplish this particular goal by deploying chatbots. As a matter of fact, the delivery of personalized services can improve the overall rates of conversion by 25%.
5. Enhanced employee productivity
Banking Chatbots have multiple benefits. These benefits don’t just revolve around customer experience but they mean to improve employee experience too. Chatbots help saves a lot of employee time, which they save from automated responses and assistance. With this, employees don’t get worn out by repetitive, monotonous tasks. As a result, their efficiency increases and they become more productive.
Some of these repetitive and monotonous activities include accessing personal details, maintaining a record of payroll details, applying for leaves, updating the contact information, performing a detailed review of time-sheets, and other tasks. Once chatbots automate these tasks, banking professionals have more time to concentrate on important deals. They will not get worked out and this way, their productivity will increase. As a result, they will be able to better serve customers and improve their experience.
6. Quick information about customer finances and advice
From end customers of the bank to CXOs, customers of different banks come from a diverse range. Chatbots are proficient at providing all sorts of financial information and are also capable of keeping this information safe and secure. In fact, chatbots provide this information with much contextual context and insights for greater knowledge. With this, we now embrace conversational banking and view chatbots as new-age banking executives.
Banking bots can also advise customers on how to manage and invest their money. Professionals train them enough so that they are updated with the latest news, trends, and information. Chatbots can demystify complex banking and financial terminologies and help customers make smart financial decisions.
7. Easy KYC initiation
Customers no longer have to fill up the same kind of form every time they visit a bank. Banking Chatbots will enable simple and easy transactions with just a few clicks on finger impressions to ensure that these transactions are safe.
8. Chatbots for assisting fraud detection
Whenever a customer signs up with a bank, they trust the bank with their hard-earned money. So, banks must ensure extra care to maintain this trust. Chatbots act as helping hands in sending you to push notifications proactively. These automated programmed notifications keep you updated about transactions done on your account in real-time. If it’s a fraud, you can also reply to the messages with pre-customized instructions to stop the transactions.
9. Chatbots in banking increases and improves customer sessions
You may also get unsolicited marketing messages from chatbots. If you find it irritating, you can simply shut it out with ease without the fear of hurting anyone. A chatbot is not a human that carries a grievance or grouse. The good part is, the chatbot can do a good analysis of your customer sessions, read your likes and preferences, and proffer the right products and services. Chatbots can be useful to spread word of mouth to customers.
10. Increases brand loyalty
There’s a lot of pressure on banks to retain and grow their customer base while up-selling, cross-selling additional products and services. There’s a demand for convenience and innovation, but oftentimes when customers come face-to-face with this innovation, it feels like they’re interacting with an entirely new platform and instills a feeling of mistrust. So to put brand loyalty back into banking and to counter these issues, many institutes have adopted AI chatbots.
AI chatbots drive innovation in a controlled manner. They build brand loyalty by engaging with customers on the channels they prefer slowly finding a place in the customer’s daily life. It’s comparable to how modern customers interact with friends, family, and colleagues. Banking chatbots can also create personalized brand experiences that increase acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty.
Build a successful customer engagement chatbot for banks
Features to implement for banking chatbot
- Current Balance inquiry
- Transaction History
- Locate nearest ATMs and branch based on the user’s location or zip code entry
- Transfer Funds
- Customer feedback and measurements
- Switch to categorized hotlines for exceptions
- FAQ — Customer Service Queries across Categories
These are just some of the basic ones that we currently target. There are many more that can be implemented to provide for an always-available intelligent interface for a customer to transact on to fulfill their banking needs. AI in banking can be extremely beneficial to reduce service volumes to more automated channels.
Consider security
Banking and financial services deal with a lot of sensitive customer data, so security has to be a top priority when building a chatbot. You need to communicate how you’re protecting your customers and how you’re ensuring their privacy. Consider deploying an on-premise chatbot to avoid data breaches and enabling authentication systems when building your chatbot.
Do more with chatbots
What if your AI chatbot can remind you about important bank payments? Periodically inform you about the state of your budget? Suggest how to save money? Inform you about financial products that are best fitted for you? Provide an investment portfolio update? Deliver important, time-sensitive notification?
This banking bot infographic designed by Engati will give you a quick view of how you can not only save your time but also provide you a better customer experience!
Banks that have adopted customer engagement chatbots
1. Qatar Insurance Company
Another major BFSI company, Qatar Insurance Company (QIC), uses an Engati chatbot to increase customer engagement, drive sales, and create amazing customer experiences.
Check out their video testimonial
2. Bank of America
Erica, derived from the word America was introduced by the Bank of America. It is used to give information about the account balance, send various notifications to the customers, provide updates, share credit reports, suggestions, pay bills, and help customers in completing their transactions.
3. JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase uses chatbots to improve its back-office tasks. The chatbot can perform better than a human law executive for analyzing long-format legal documents and assist.
4. Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo uses Facebook messenger as well as AI chatbots to respond to user queries. It provides information like which is the nearest bank ATM and their account balance.
5American Express
American Express focuses on the merchant relationship by making them aware of the benefits of a credit card, contextual recommendations, and notifications regarding the sales. To avail of the benefits, customers must connect to the AmEx messenger chatbot.
Create a banking chatbot with Engati
The revolution with chatbots in banking has been incredibly phenomenal. Banking chatbots are not just providing excellent customer service but are improving the way customers interact with banks. In fact, chatbots are revolutionizing the way banks provide their services to customers.
Banks put a great amount of value on customer support because it’s a huge driver of customer satisfaction. They need to rank ahead by providing great products and services, brand recognition, trust, cost, and innovation.
Additionally, chatbots for the banking industry are doing great in ensuring cost-saving for banks. It is estimated that problem resolution over the phone with live agents comes out to be anywhere between $5 and $35 per call. On the other hand, live web chat costs around $3 per interaction. Pretty cheap and efficient, isn’t it?
Chatbots that use human-to-machine interactions cost less than $0.50 per interaction and often deliver answers much faster than other engagement channels. Beyond being a less expensive engagement channel, chatbots also reduce — at a bare minimum of 10 percent — the number of support calls and chats a bank receives.
Therefore, there’s great promise for banking chatbots. In fact, banking officials want to collaborate more with AI specialists to ensure great service for their customers. After all, it is about faith and trust when it comes to your money. And banks want to improve how you manage and invest your money
Build your own contextual chatbot now!
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