Artificial intelligence (AI) has been trending for some time and not slowing down in its speed, ability, or usefulness. Many financial institutions have implemented at least a basic form of AI to enhance their consumer experience and level of service. This may be a chatbot for online banking or basic IVR (Interactive Voice Response) for the business phone line.
As technology gets smarter, consumers experience fast, seamless customer service with other industries, and they are coming to expect the same type of service from their banking and lending institution. Consumer demand and a desire to remain competitive is expediting digital transformation in the financial institution sector, with many financial institutions seeking out conversational AI over conventional AI.
What is Conversational AI v. Conventional AI?
Let’s begin with conventional artificial intelligence:
Conventional AI:
- Basic
- Minimal personalization, if any
- Limited number of channels
- Little to no opportunity for self-service
- Replaces some human resources
- Lacking an integration of data across the business
Example of conventional AI: A phone system that is programmed with a set of basic functions (i.e., Press 1 for branch hours, Press 2 for loan information etc.)
Conventional AI is an important first step for financial institutions to improve consumer service, however, conversational AI offers a deeper, advanced consumer experience.
Conversational AI:
- Intelligent
- Highly personalized to the consumer
- Omnichannel
- Allows user to self-serve
- Integration of data across the business
- Frees up human resources for other roles
Example of conversational AI: A chatbot that can personalize the conversation with the accountholder’s name, validate their identity, answer the question, “What is my balance in my draft account?”, and conclude with a cross-selling product promotion
Why Conversational AI?
Conversational AI can increase speed and efficiency as well as diffuse user frustration. It is a smart interaction rather than a robotic transaction.
Conversational AI offers:
- Speed: Consumers’ tolerance for waiting on the phone to talk with a human is decreasing. 93% of callers expect their issue to be resolved within one interaction. Consumers are more likely to disengage or abandon the interaction with slower speed if they can’t get the answer they came for quickly.
- Security: While accountholders desire personalized experiences, when it comes to banking they also require a high level of trust and security. Secure and compliance-friendly AI can increase layers of authentication, providing additional barriers against fraud and identity theft.
- Self-service: Because financial situations, especially debt situations, are highly emotional, 62% of consumers would prefer to work with artificial intelligence over a human. Advanced AI allows a consumer to self-serve even for more complex requests, such as skipping a loan payment. Additionally, AI can identify when a consumer’s question has been responded to and take the opportunity to promote a product that correlates with their question and provide self-service application for the product. With AI, self-service can be offered within branch hours, but can also come into play after hours, on weekend, and holidays.
Conversational AI helps a credit union or bank become automated and omnichannel, enabling consumers to get help through various platforms at any time. This impacts consumer retention, expands loan opportunities, and overall increases revenue.
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Getting Started: 4 Takeaways for Conversational AI
Though consumer requests and challenges may vary, implementing conversational AI has many use cases and impacts. Here are 4 reasons to get started with conversational AI:
- Assess the area of greatest need. To get started with AI, determine the consumer touchpoint that is most lacking a deep level of customer service. Perhaps it is:
- Consumer Onboarding
- Loan Application
- Call Center Operations
- Collections
- Mobile and Web Experience Personalization
- Offer/Service Recommendations
- Automate, automate, automate. The benefits of automating consumer interactions are two-fold: Your institution creates operational efficiencies and consumers can self-serve as it’s convenient for them. Automation can replace costly hiring and training efforts for expanding your call center, and AI allows communication to be omnichannel and omni-touchpoint, helping you serve your consumers on various platforms.
- Authenticate: While many questions that your bank or credit union receive may not require authenticating the consumer (i.e., “What are your branch hours?”) financial institutions must delicately balance convenience with security and compliance. Choosing a conversational AI service exclusively for credit unions and banks can help ensure compliance while meeting consumers’ expectations for secure convenience.
- Act now: The rise of artificial intelligence is here to stay. Conversational AI technology can adapt to changing consumer demands and is more agile and fast learning than traditional artificial intelligence. To stay competitive and increase revenue opportunities, strategically plan to implement conversational AI in your institution. When choosing a provider, ensure that your financial institutions select a tool that is prepared to grow with your business.
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While there are countless benefits to implementing artificial intelligence, a profound by-product is increased revenue. Advanced, conversational AI helps generate revenue by creating a seamless consumer journey across multiple channels, aids in online conversion rates, reduces call abandonment rates, and increases recovered dollars from collections. In fact, this software offers a 30% increase of revenue per consumer.
Implementing artificial intelligence isn’t a downgrade for customer experience. Just the opposite. Conversional artificial intelligence can provide Amazon-like service, reduce stress on staff and deepen consumer relationships with seamless, around-the-clock help for their everyday questions, while having an impact on your bottom line.
Is your financial institution strategically investing in conversational artificial intelligence?