08/09/2023
Chatbots in the banking sector
Since the beginning of the digitalization era, banks have been constantly searching for convenient ways to communicate with clients for advertising, increasing loyalty and organizing remote financial management.
If in the mid-90s the breakthrough for the banking sector was the transition to Internet banking, then in the mid-2010s banks began to develop instant messengers as channels of communication with clients. Today, hardly anyone can be surprised by the response from a voice assistant when calling a bank’s call center.
An attempt to eliminate as much as possible the participation of a bank employee in the processes of providing banking services and increasing task productivity is a necessary and reasonable step.
Today, there is a qualitative and quantitative growth in voice assistants based on artificial intelligence (AI). Thus, in 2021, 11 banks used voice bots, while a year earlier only 9 banks. In 2021, they were able to answer all 8 test questions, but in 2020, the maximum score was only 6 out of 8.
However, when communicating with a voice assistant, many customers note significant shortcomings, such as a lack of personalization and a long response time.
In the competition for a retail client, banks began to actively develop digital communication channels based on social networks, chats on bank websites and instant messengers. Almost half of the largest banks (49%) use 3 or more digital service channels, of which 6% use 7 channels, and 1% use 8 channels.
According to the Naumen study, in which 103 retail banks took part, the share of social networks used by banks increased over the past year alone: the Instagram channel - up to 53%, the VKontakte channel - up to 62%, Facebook - up to 55%. The popularity of chats on banking websites increased from 37% to 45%.
Bots are becoming increasingly important. However, the resolution of complex issues will still remain with the live operators.
In addition to solving the problem of quick communication with a client, the use of artificial intelligence in instant messengers and social networks helps banks save money, since the cost of maintaining call centers is much higher than maintaining the working functions of text and voice robots.
Thus, call center employees will be left to work with the most complex requests, while simple questions will be increasingly processed by robots.
Despite the active implementation of AI in the banking sector, a fifth of the largest Russian banks still do not use social networks and instant messengers to communicate with clients. However, the number of such credit institutions is decreasing. It is expected that by 2025, chatting and calling the bank will become equally popular, and the functions of chatbots will be expanded to conduct banking transactions.
For example, PSB has already launched a chat bot in instant messengers, through which you can not only get advice, but also carry out some financial transactions for entrepreneurs: receive statements, issue and pay bills. If this dynamic continues, then in the next few years chatbots may become the main channel of communication between banks and clients.
What are chatbots and how do they work.
A chatbot is a program that simulates a dialogue in a messenger. The user writes a message to the bank via a social network or instant messenger. The bot instantly responds to him, informing him that the user is communicating with the robot, and offering to perform this or that action by clicking on the buttons that appear in the dialogue. If the user has responded to the invitation, he receives the next message, and so on, until the client’s issue is completely resolved.
Why do banks launch bots in messengers?
The advantage of this method of communication is that users do not need to download and install special applications on mobile devices. On the contrary, communication with the bank takes place through a familiar and convenient channel - a messenger or a social network.
Chatbots are personalization, a wide range of standard tasks that can be solved without the presence of a person, reducing the response time. There are many tasks that take a long time to complete. Chatbots are designed to save time and direct human labor to other, more important areas of activity.
Bots inform customers about exchange rates, new banking products and ongoing promotions. Some bots can perform simple account operations.
In addition, chatbots help in data analysis, fraud detection and data collection.
Bots also help banks respond to customer dissatisfaction by analyzing complaints and providing critical insights that help banks improve customer service.
A bit of history.
In an effort to strengthen their image, get loyal customers and expand their customer base, banks have become actively interested in instant messengers. Due to their simplicity, they are popular among audiences of all ages. .
In turn, the developers of instant messengers are interested in the fact that users spend more and more time in them. As a result, interfaces (API) were opened for third-party developers who could create their own programs and offer them to the billionth audience of instant messengers.
The first were Telegram, Kik and Facebook. Viber, VK and others followed him. In 2021, WhatsApp Business API and Instagram gained great popularity.
But this method of communication between banks and customers has a significant drawback - a low level of security and limited functionality. Therefore, some banks are not yet ready to seriously consider the wide functionality of chatbots for making transactions.
Examples of banking chatbots in Telegram
- Alfa Bank's bot provides its clients with information about the location and opening hours of the nearest branches and ATMs, about currency exchange rates and can redirect to the desired section of the bank's website for processing banking products.
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The Raiffeisenbank bot , in addition to information about exchange rates and the nearest addresses of bank branches, informs users about news and promotions carried out by the bank. As a partner of retail and service points under the affiliate program “Discounts for You!” the bot informs clients about such points within a radius of 1 km and provides their contacts.
TransKapitalBank turned out to be the most advanced and riskiest. His TalkBankBot chatbot works in two channels at once - Telegram and Viber. In addition, it has impressive operational functionality. In addition to standard functions, it helps to issue and activate plastic bank cards, perform account replenishment operations and transfer funds to another bank.
If chatbots themselves are a relatively young direction, then banking chatbots are just being born. But their prospects are not in doubt. Chatbots are designed to completely change both the banking sector itself and the way credit institutions interact with clients. Thanks to such advances in technology, financial institutions provide greater trust and value to customers by adapting to their interests and the characteristics of their daily “life” in the digital environment.
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