4 ways to use chatbots in the banking industry

Customer expectations are rising and brands can’t ignore it, not even the banking sector. Positive customer experiences influence 75% of bank customer decisions and happy customers are 12.2 times more likely to try new offerings from a bank. To survive, banks need to make customer service a priority. 

Traditional customer support methods are often labor-intensive and costly. In a time of near-zero interest rates, banks need to save money, not spend it. 

They’re also less effective than in the past. Why? In 2020, customers do their banking online, not in-person or over the phone. 

Banks and financial services companies should focus on offering efficient customer service on their customers’ digital channels of choice. 

The most effective way to do this? Through automation, of course.

The solution: customer service automation

Customer service automation is the practice of putting technology in charge of the more mundane aspects of customer service. Tools like chatbots can handle many simple but time-consuming customer-facing processes.

Having a virtual assistant or bot, usually powered by conversational AI and machine learning, working in customer service is becoming increasingly vital in the banking industry. They’re already being used by major brands like Bank of America and American Express. 

Customers are online and they expect responsive service. They don’t really care whether that comes from a human or a machine. For example, 71% of banking customers say they are willing to receive automated support when choosing the type of bank account they should open. On top of that, 54% of consumers would always choose a chatbot over a human if it saved them 10 minutes.

While bots are an excellent solution, they’re not designed to handle everything. They’re best suited to tackling simple requests. But where to start? Here are 4 easy-to-automate use cases for a banking chatbot: 

4 ways to use chatbots in the banking industry

• Update account information
  Let customers update their personal information themselves rather than wasting time speaking to an agent.
  

• Answer credit card or banking product questions
  Give customers all the details they need to sign up for a new credit card or banking service.

• Get account balances
  Allow customers to find their banking account balances quickly through a conversational interface.
  

• Find branches or ATMs
  Help customers find the nearest branch or ATM.
  

What are the benefits?

There are plenty of benefits for banks adding bots to their arsenal of customer service tools. The obvious advantage is better, faster customer service, but that’s for customers. What’s in it for a bank? Well, here are just 5 of the benefits:

• Security & risk mitigation
  Despite the advances in security, banks’ most glaring vulnerability is often their employees. Automation reduces this risk by giving employees the information they need without giving them access to the systems supplying it. ‍
• Higher quality service
  Sometimes employees have a bad day, other times they accidentally offer incorrect information, or they can be overwhelmed by the volume of requests. Automated customer service solutions provide consistent, accurate responses to routine, day-to-day questions, giving employees time to dedicate to exceptional cases.  ‍

• Happier and more productive employees
  Customer-facing automation resolves basic requests, only letting complex cases make it through to human agents. This makes agents’ jobs more challenging and rewarding, leaving them more satisfied and productive.‍

• Larger service capacity
  With automation handling the simple questions and requests, the customer service team has more capacity to manage unexpected surges.
• ‍Reduced costs
  Automation reduces risk, enhances service quality, and increases productivity and capacity. These improvements inevitably lead to cost savings and, indirectly, revenue growth from satisfied customers purchasing more financial products. 
  

Want to learn more about bots for banks? Discover the 8 use cases banks should automate with bots by downloading our eBook! 

Or, if you’re keen to get a bot of your own, send us a message and we’ll get you started.