Banking

OTP Bank improves customer support with the use of DRUID AI virtual assistant

A top bank in Central Eastern Europe capitalizes on DRUID conversational AI technology to improve customer support and automate rising credit payment deferrals brought about by critical new financial legislation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the wake of COVID-19: growing anxiety, financial strains, and shifting legislation

At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak many banks were quickly pushed to implement payment suspension schemes for their customers under the supervision and coordination of the National Banks and the European Banking Authority, with legislation enabling a credit deferral for a period of up to 9 months. The implementation of these large-scale suspensions changed the rules by which banks operated their customer support units and created new challenges for these institutions.

The Challenge

For the OTP Bank, the volume of incoming customer requests rose by 125%, adding pressure on call center teams. The sheer volume of calls led to longer handling times and higher costs. In this demanding context, OTP Bank, a bank that has defined itself by the level of care it offers to clients, felt even more pressure to improve the customer experience quickly. Thus, it sought a technology solution that would be fast to implement and successful in relieving overloaded call center agents while allowing them to handle even more calls.

  • Key wins

  • Main goals

  • Testimonial

30x reduction in time to submit credit deferral

OTP Bank’s deployed a DRUID AI-powered conversational automation solution designed to provide customers with round-the-clock personalized information, as well as guide them through the credit payment deferral process. 

Key wins for OTP Bank:
  • Increased job satisfaction and productivity for customer support teams in the bank.
  • Time spent by a customer to finalize the credit deferral process decreased 30-fold.
  • Improved digital experience for the customer helps enhance his satisfaction with the bank’s services and maintain the valued close relationship previously built.

The right technology to help people

In the second quarter of 2020 the European economic reality vastly changed. Awash with the uncertainty of what the next months would bring people welcomed the measures enabling the postponement of their credit installments and turned in large numbers to banks to take advantage of this opportunity.

For the OTP Bank, the volume of incoming requests rose by 125%, thus it sought a solution that would help them: 

  • Manage the upsurge in credit deferral requests generated by new legislation.
  • Reduce customer support time and the time for processing credit deferral requests.
  • Accelerate customer access to relevant information.
  • Automate client eligibility checks for payment deferrals.
  • Lessen the workload of back-office personnel.

"The team’s expertise in financial services, their fast response time, and non-stop availability allowed DRUID to deliver the project in just two weeks. Thanks to the DRUID integration with UiPath RPA bots, we can process three times more deferral requests with the same people in the back-office"

Director of Project Management,
OTP Bank

 

The Solution

OTP Bank chose to deploy OCTAVIAN, an AI-powered conversational application developed using DRUID technology. Available directly on the bank’s website, OCTAVIAN was designed to provide customers with round-the-clock personalized information about the OTPDirekt or OTPay digital products, as well as guide them through online demanding the credit payment deferral. 

In the background, by integrating with UiPath RPA technology, OCTAVIAN validates customer data inputs, checks their eligibility against a set of clearly pre-defined criteria, and, in the end, decides whether the application can be validated.

It then proceeds to upload the form into the bank’s BPM system. All included, this translates into a 30-times faster process, as the time needed to process the request drops from 10 minutes to a mere 20 seconds.

Learnings

The Economist Intelligence Unit survey found that, going forward, 77% of banking executives are convinced that unlocking value from AI will be the key differentiator between winning and losing banks. This inflection point paves the way to a rapid reimagining of operational banking models and a more significant focus on improving the digital experience.

Banks like OTP Bank, which have already seized the opportunity to institutionalize game-changing ways managing customers interactions, will be excellently positioned to accede to the forefront of tomorrow’s banking world.

 

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CASE STUDY

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