AI Chatbots in Banking Sector
Banking chatbots are virtual assistants that help customers with banking transactions, query resolutions, and support in general. Nowadays, Chatbots are being successfully used to open a new account, check balances, transfer funds, and more. In recent years, they have become more popular as banks look for ways to reduce costs while increasing customer satisfaction.
In most cases, banking chatbots help banks lower the cost of first-level (L1) support. The bots can solve easy customer queries, and the more complicated ones can then be escalated to human agents. Most banks today, thus, prefer a mix of both bots and human agents to manage customer support.
With improvements in AI, Chatbots are becoming more sophisticated by the day. We can thus foresee a future where the bots handle a more significant chunk of complicated customer queries and, in the process, further bring down the requirements and costs of hiring human agents.
Top 7 Potential Used Cases for Chatbots in Banking
Banking chatbots are designed to provide a faster and more accurate service than a human operator. The main benefit of using banking chatbots is that they can reduce costs and improve efficiency in the banking industry by automating simple tasks.
In 2022, the top 5 used cases of chatbots in banking are listed below.
Upscaled Communication
Banking chatbots allow banks to communicate with customers more efficiently and effectively than traditional methods. Customers can ask questions, get answers, and conduct transactions without the need to be served by a human agent. This benefits banks and customers because it saves time while ensuring that all questions are answered correctly. As a result, customer satisfaction is uncompromised, but the bank saves a lot of time and money on service.
24/7 Support
Banking chatbots provide 24/7 support. This is especially helpful when a customer needs help during non-banking hours. For example, if a customer forgets their password on a Sunday and needs assistance to access their account, they can do so with immediate help from a banking chatbot.
Enhanced Productivity of Bank Personnel
Banking chatbots can help banks reduce their employees’ time on administrative tasks and mundane query resolution. This frees up time for bank personnel to focus on more sophisticated and impactful tasks. It’s especially beneficial for customer service representatives who often spend a large chunk of their day answering phone calls, emails, and customer texts.
Faster Transactions
Banking chatbots can process transactions in seconds instead of hours or days, allowing customers to complete their business faster. Quick resolution is something that most customers love. Especially effective for large financial institutions that are notoriously known for long snaking queues.
Personalized Client Experience
Banking chatbots can help banks personalize their customer experience by incorporating information about each customer’s preferences and history into the conversation. It makes the customers feel special and is a relief considering the typical situations that we are accustomed to: Explaining your problem in detail to Agent 1, getting the call transferred to Agent 2 & then having to explain your situation from scratch all over again!
Cross Selling and Marketing Using Chatbots
With the progress of conversational commerce, chatbots can cross-sell for market products to customers. We have all received the latest offers from our banks on WhatsApp or SMS. With time, this will improve, and chatbots will become a key sales channel for banks.
Online Social Media Reputation Management using Chatbots
In this age of the social media boom, customers are more likely than ever to open up about their concerns or feedback on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Banks and companies across industries have felt the need to address such queries rapidly before things blow up. Using chatbots, banks can have meaningful chats on social media to collect concerns and transfer them to the concerned departments – it can go a long way in building the company’s online reputation.
Future of Chatbots in Banking
Banking systems have long been a popular use case for chatbots, but the technology has only recently become sophisticated enough to make them truly useful.
Initially, chatbots were simple FAQ engines that could only answer questions already available in their database. With the rise of ML and NLP (Natural Language Processing), bots can have more meaningful conversations by interpreting questions that are not within the database. However, when it comes to responding – the responses are usually templated.
In the future, we can expect more non-templated responses from bots. We are fast advancing to a time when it may be difficult for a customer to guess whether they just chatted with a human or a machine.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the use of chatbots in banking?
Many banks use chatbots to send customers timely reminders of account-related information, such as bill payment deadlines or last-day loan offers.
What task can be helped by a banking chatbot?
Banking bots can provide financial advice by consulting with professionals and staying up to date on news and trends. By using chatbots, customers can understand complex banking and financial terminology.
How are chatbots redefining the banking experience?
Banking chatbots are changing the way customers interact with banks. They make it easier for people to find the information they need and complete transactions without having human interaction.
Why do chatbots make the best personal banker?
Chatbots can be used around the clock, so current and potential customers can speak with a representative about their banking issues whenever convenient for them—this ultimately leads to a better customer experience.