5 Ways Conversational AI Can Significantly Enhance Your Bank's Technology

Technological advancements have drastically changed how individuals conduct and interact with businesses in the past few years. Partly due to the pandemic, businesses have found new ways to make their online presence more convenient and easy to navigate. In some cases, consumers prefer the online platform far more than the face-to-face experience that was once the only option available. Though retail was among the first to experiment with online platforms, every other kind of business has also decided to hop on board, including the world of banking.

Traditional banking experiences were once considered a chore to attend. Long lines, limited availability during the day, and overcrowded agents that always took way longer to solve requests than customers expected. Though some online banking features were introduced to bring ease to clients, such as online check deposits and transferring money from one account to another, banks still lagged in their technological advancements.

Now more than ever, banks are executing advancements in their online banking that have been long overdue. Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the newest addition to the online banking experience that is sure to bring ease and convenience to new and existing banking technology. 

Conversational AI, which comes in the form of AI virtual assistants, is a type of Artificial Intelligence that allows clients to interact directly with the bank's systems and processes in a more human-like manner. It does so by using large volumes of data, Machine Learning, and Natural language processing to help imitate human behavior, learn speech and text patterns, and even translate them into multiple languages. Conversational AI is a relatively new technology that will not only change the way online banking operates but enhance the already existing technology, benefitting both clients and banks in more ways than one. 

Here are five ways conversational AI enhances your bank's existing technology: 

Guide Through Online Services

Trying to navigate any website for the first time can be extremely challenging and frustrating enough that some clients may give up ever trying again. When it comes to your bank's website, this is the last thing you want your clients to feel. No matter how clutter-free and easy to navigate you think your online platform is, there will always be clients that require extra assistance to effectively use your website. Not providing adequate services to help these individuals can lead to a loss in income and potential clients.

Using conversational AI to enhance customers' online experience can ensure they get the most out of your online platform by benefiting from its convenience and ease. Conversational AI can help customers by answering questions and requests 24/7 and guiding them through processes such as onboarding, just like human agents would. An advanced conversational AI agent will be able to learn from previous conversations and remember patterns so that clients go through a much better experience. This will improve client retention, boost satisfaction, and increase customer acquisition. 

Increase Capacity and Scalability (When Needed) 

Waiting to speak to a live agent can take up a client's valuable time, resulting in an unsatisfactory experience that is likely to generate frustration. Even if your call centers are fully staffed with the best customer service representatives the industry has to offer, it won't help in minimizing the obnoxiously long waiting times. This is especially true for high call volume times where most individuals have a timed window in which they are available to talk. If the wait time exceeds their available time, clients are unlike to wait, which can be a great inconvenience. 

Conversational AI can enhance your client's call center experience by increasing your call center's capacity. Utilizing conversational AI to address customer requests can relieve call center agents of repetitive tasks, allowing them to respond to more complex requests while AI bots assist customers through process automation.

Using Conversational AI to increase call center capacity can improve customer satisfaction while alleviating the stress of your best customer service representatives. 

Tracking Customer Satisfaction KPIs

Sometimes, clients can be hard to satisfy no matter how advanced your online platform is. To better understand your client's needs, conversation AI can be used to track customer satisfaction KPIs through automated interactions. 

Your online conversational AI agent should be programmed with a defined end goal which should be met after every client engagement. Providing a brief survey at the end of each client interaction can track the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) or the Net Promoter Score(NPS).

These scores can keep track of KPIs that can provide information on how satisfied your clients are. This can be used to enhance other parts of the online platforms or the conversational journey itself, depending on the results of the survey. Monitoring these scores from time to time can ensure that your conversation AI chatbot is enhancing your bank's technology and client experience.

24/7 Customer Support

24/7 Customer representatives can be hired to monitor the call center lines, but doing so can cost your institution a lot of money. Asking individuals to work undesirable hours requires you to offer higher compensation for the same amount of work your other employees are putting in. Despite that, offering 24/7 services to clients that expect instant access to customer service and help at all hours of the day is critical for success. 

Rather than hiring more customer service representatives to handle late-night inquires, using conversational AI can save money while providing consistency at all hours of the day. 

Decreases IVR Frustration

Just as clients don't enjoy waiting long periods of time during high call volumes, the same can be said about using interactive voice response (IVR) systems during phone calls. Interactive voice response systems require clients to listen to a long menu list before being able to choose the preferred option. Sometimes distractions outside of the phone conversation can lead to mishearing the menu, requiring the individual to listen to the menu again. Other times a client may choose a menu option only to find out that it is the incorrect choice, requiring the process to start all over again. This not only increases customer frustration but also greatly inconveniences them. 

Using conversational AI can enhance your bank's existing technology by engaging the customer instantly and providing the service they need. If the customer's request is too complex to be handled automatically, the conversational AI agent can then connect them to the right customer representative department. This decreases not only customer IVR frustration but also company time and money associated with transferring clients between departments. 

Conversational AI is present technology that can be used to enhance your bank's existing technology in many ways. Partnering with DRUID can bring about all the befits that conversational AI brings to your bank's technology. By creating a cognitive bank with DRUID conversation AI, your bank will be able to provide 24/7 customer support, offer multiple customer services and finance tips, and multi-channel capabilities to your online platform.  

It's time to see how conversational AI could help your financial institution deliver a more efficient, intuitive customer experience. Schedule a live demo to see how this technology could work for you.