With the world in the grip of the COVID-19 global epidemic that has created operating and financial uncertainties in many major economies, all smart businesses are trying to reimagine their CX to stay afloat, navigate, and perhaps even thrive over the next weeks or months. In today’s “remote is key” moment, they are scrambling to adapt to the realities of social distancing, striving to meet their customers’ needs.
As the economic fallout spreads, retail banks find themselves juggling some big priorities that require concrete steps to reposition their CX and recalibrate their operations for a future without face-to-face customer support. Obviously, the future lies in relying more heavily on technology and digitally transformed, self-service customer touchpoints that allow banking customers to conduct banking without the stress of human contact during the pandemic.
One of the most sought-after self-service channels in the “we need it now” list of banks today is the not-so-humble chatbots, fueling a new era of conversational banking. Chatbots have been around for a while as one of the best AI-powered CX solutions to reduce support costs and improve customer engagement and agent productivity; now, the technology is more needed than ever!
There are numerous benefits that chatbots bring to the table during a crisis like COVID-19.
Anytime customer support:
Chatbots are ‘always-on’ to support customers 24/7. As chatbots learn to handle more complex queries, they can resolve up to 80% of customer queries in a more personalized and human-like way, saving a lot of time and resources of a bank’s customer support division.
Intelligent routing:
Chatbots can offer a real-time filtering system that can massively reduce the workload on the customer service teams. If there are any tricky question that a chatbot cannot answer, it can quickly escalate and route contacting customers to the best possible agent or department to handle their query.
Cost-saving:
Chatbots reduce customer support costs by 30%. They allow banks to allocate resources for more productive tasks rather than handling repetitive customer queries. According to studies, by the end of 2020, 85% of all customer interactions will be handled without a human agent, helping businesses to cut costs by $8 billion.
Lower operational costs:
Chatbots are less expensive compared to the cost associated with hiring and training the agents. Building a chatbot is cheaper than building a custom banking app. Once deployed, chatbots can handle thousands of customers over multiple channels.
Speed:
Chatbots are gaining more appeal among newer, more tech-savvy audiences among millennials and Gen-Z because of their speed, faster response, and intuitive interface. They allow customers to do most of the banking, such as checking account balances, transferring money, etc., in a few clicks.
Better CX:
Leveraging the true potential of technologies like speech and facial recognition, and natural language processing, chatbots can now go beyond just answering frequently asked questions and make conversations more human-like and enriching.
Better efficiency and productivity:
With chatbots handling much of the simple customer inquiries like product inquiries and information about loan interest rates, the best credit cards, and more, the agents can spend their time on complex customer service tickets and escalated calls.
For banks, chatbots are a boon. As emerging digital tools offering convenient, personal, and unique customer experience, chatbots are changing the way banks interact with customers. More and more financial institutions now realize how useful chatbots can be in resolving customer requests cheaply, quickly, and consistently. Do you want to deploy chatbots to work side-by-side with your customer service agents and create a win-win situation for both your customers and the business? Contact Acqueon’s CX specialist now to learn more.