Key Takeaway
The need for technological developments to help teams in the banking and personal finance industries improve customer experience and collect insights from customer data is reaching an all time high. Brands like Wells Fargo are leading the charge with chatbots and implementation of AI-driven tools.
Bringing in the bots
Consumer-facing industries heavy in customer service, including banking, airlines, telecommunications, ecommerce and more, are increasingly employing the help of AI-driven chatbots to interact with customers online and do the listening for them, improving the experience and minimizing issues like repeat questions, long wait time and human error.
Moreover, these bots can collect, aggregate and analyze data from these interactions in a way that humans can’t, allowing them to constantly improve with each customer service request – rather than simply answering tickets.
Wells Fargo is leading the charge, initially employing AI in fraud prevention. They’ve since announced an entire, dedicated AI team to guide innovations in all areas of their business – from compliance, to customer experience, to underwriting and authentication. Earlier this year, this tech turned consumer-facing, with the launch of AI-driven chatbots serving customers via social media.
In April 2017, the institution piloted a Facebook bot with several thousand customers to answer their questions and messages. According to Reuters, Steve Ellis, head of Wells Fargo’s Innovation Group, claims “AI technology allows us to take an experience that would have required our customers to navigate through several pages on our website, and turn it into a simple conversation in a chat environment.”
To do so, they’ve brought on some of the best up-and-coming data scientists and engineers in the business, improving transaction capabilities and helping them to discover even more insights. Bipin Sahni, EVP and Head of Innovation and R&D at Wells Fargo, reports that “regularly collaborating with startups on a wide range of technologies helps us explore big ideas outside our walls.”
The bot goes a bit beyond answering basic questions, to include features that explore an individual customer’s data, allowing them to visualize their spending trends and habits.
Earlier this year, international transfer company TransferWise went a step further, enabling transactions to take place directly within the social network. According to Head of Global Partnerships Scott Miller, this was an effort to “bring faster, cheaper, and more convenient international money transfers to everyone in the world.”
The data gathered by these bots allows decision makers in these companies to discover trends and insights that humans alone wouldn’t be able to see. With the help of AI, they can find out the most commonly asked questions, analyze sentiment, discover areas where they can improve, find out which types of transactions occur most often and in which currencies, and much more – allowing them to iterate on the customer experience far faster, in the hope of remaining competitive.
Why should I be looking at this data?
In B2C banking, customer retention is a significant KPI. Insights from the customer service team can point to massive opportunities for organizational improvement and areas where you can increase your competitive edge. This is your direct line to the end user, and the first indication when something’s trending in the wrong direction.
However it’s not just your own customer data that can make a difference. By benchmarking against the competition, brands just beginning to implement these technological innovations have the added benefit of insights from their competitors’ customer feedback, allowing them to quickly evaluating what’s working and what missed the boat – so they can to target their own innovations and craft an even better customer experience.
Public response to these tools, and their subsequent feedback on the brands who are pioneering them, is readily available online. For instance, what are customers saying about chatbots at Wells Fargo? What is the sentiment, and what are the trending keywords they’re discussing? What are the areas where they’re receiving negative feedback – indicating a gap in the market?
You can let your competitors supplement your rapid testing and leverage their customer reactions, by observing the online breadcrumbs they’re leaving behind.