When it comes to industries adopting new technologies that improve customer service and internal operations, the banking industry hasn’t always been ahead of the curve. However, as banks focus increasingly on helping customers with personal financial wellness, they’re being more innovative and adapting new FinTech technologies to meet the needs of customers.
Customer expectations for digital banking services have gotten higher as the need has risen and new technologies have emerged to meet those needs, such as artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of data programmed to automatically perform a recurring task with a specified intended outcome and has bolstered a decade of immense growth and innovation in the banking industry.
Among the AI-powered tools banks increasingly have at their disposal are banking chatbots. Banking chatbots use AI and machine learning algorithms to enable conversational functions and interfaces, so people can interact with them as if the bot were another human that’s ready to answer any questions or concerns they have. They’ve become staples in most retail banking services with the ability to help customers manage their money through personalized services and in-depth data analysis.
Banking chatbots can do a whole lot more, and in this blog, Envestnet | Yodlee explores the many use cases of chatbots in banking.
Banking Chatbot Examples and Benefits
This list of examples demonstrates how chatbots in banking help retail banks provide a higher level of service to their customers and reveals how banks not leveraging chatbots and artificial intelligence are missing out.
All Day Customer Service
Through the use of chatbots, banks can offer 24/7 customer support for common customer needs at the customer’s convenience, without the expense to have a staff of available human operators. They’re also great long term investments for even better AI chatbot customer service in the future.
AI chatbots are initially programmed to complete the most simple and basic of commands, and as time goes on helping customers through tasks, the algorithm learns more and refines itself to understand more complex commands. This process is known as machine learning.
The more an AI chatbot is able to understand and help customers maneuver, the more it pays for itself while giving customers a direct, prompt, and helpful banking experience.
Save Money and Time
Banks with chatbots save money by letting human operators prioritize more complicated customer service problems, and leaving simple customer inquiries for the chatbot. Chatbots act as a virtual financial assistant for customers that they can access anytime, so human operators can spend their time on others' inquiries more efficiently.
Through machine learning, human operators are able to rely on AI chatbots to get smarter and handle more advanced banking tasks for customers.
Gather Valuable Customer Feedback
Since AI chatbots are designed with a conversational interface, they can gather valuable customer feedback for financial institutions to help inform how they can improve their services for customers. The conversational atmosphere encourages customers to give feedback in a more casual way without it feeling too formalized like old-fashioned mail-in surveys or email surveys. Because of this, banks can increase their customer engagements and receive much more feedback from customers.
Personalized Offers
Chatbots in the banking sector can help banks deliver relevant and personalized services and offers to every customer. With the highest standards of customer privacy and permissions in place, chatbots can capture transactional patterns and trends.
The chatbot uses this data to generate tailored product and service offerings to customers, and can even help them learn about saving and investment opportunities that best align with their financial profiles.
Increase Product Adoption
Banks can embed AI chatbots on their websites or apps to ask new visitors if they’re interested in learning about any of the bank’s products or service offerings. Whether the chatbot asks if a visitor would be interested in the bank’s interest rates on a standard savings account, or if a visitor needs more information on how to procure a loan, each customer engagement provides insightful information for a sales process that focuses on meeting customer needs in a timely way and offers a less intrusive way to match services with potential customers accurately.
The personable and conversational experience customers have with AI chatbots help improve their overall experience and satisfaction with banking brands. With so many options for customers to bank with, their interaction with a chatbot could be the make or break experience that gives one bank an advantage over another.
Maintain Brand Voice
AI chatbots can be programmed with a bank’s brand voice so that communications with customers are consistent with the same voice across a number of touchpoints from their banking app to their website. This is another way chatbots can help improve brand affinity with existing and prospective customers and lead to more loyal and dedicated customers.
Examples of Chatbots in the Banking Sector
There is no shortage of chatbots in the banking sector. As customer expectations for digital banking services continue to rise, banks will need chatbot capabilities to keep them satisfied, or risk losing them to other banks with more up-to-date technology.
Banks Using Chatbot Technology
1. Bank of America Erica
In 2018, Bank of America introduced their AI chatbot Erica, the financial digital assistant. Erica is only available via Bank of America’s mobile banking app and helps customers conduct simple actions like paying bills, giving financial advice, credit report updates, and viewing e-statements.
Remember - she’s only getting better at it over time and with more and more customer interactions. In 2019, Bank of America reported 6 million people had used the digital financial assistant, helping with over 35 million customer requests.
2. Capital One Eno
Capital One’s AI chatbot, Eno, is exclusive to the bank’s mobile app that gets to know user behavior, and their preferred way of banking, over time. Customers have the ability to pay bills instantly and receive instant messages that inform them about account balances, transaction history, or credit limit. Eno leverages machine learning to adapt to customer behavior over time, ensuring they get the assistance they want when they need it.
3. American Express Amex
American Express credit card holders can connect their card with AmEx chatbot on messenger to receive personalized recommendations and notifications. These include contextual recommendations, reminders about exclusive card benefits, and real-time sale notifications.
Banking Chatbots With Envestnet | Yodlee
Envestnet | Yodlee’s conversational banking AI provides businesses with the capability to deliver customers next-generation financial experiences. Our conversational AI helps guide consumers toward financial wellness with chatbot solutions they can trust as if they were handled by a human operator.
Any financial service provider (FSP) looking to improve their customer digital banking experience can use Envestnet | Yodlee’s conversational AI to connect with consumers on any device. We use natural language processing from across all major conversational ecosystems to ensure the best and most authentic customer experience as possible.
Envestnet | Yodlee also offers FSPs access to our market-leading data aggregation and verification coverage, real-time account and enriched transaction data, lifelong financial wellness support, and more.
To get started implementing conversational AI into your digital banking experience, contact Envestnet | Yodlee.
