We witnessed the first humanoid robot, Sophia becoming a citizen and Elon Musk sending a car to space. Technology has certainly taken over our lives and transforming businesses. Chatbot influencing the banking sector, To enable one-touch services at customer’s doorsteps and to enhance customer experience, banking organizations increasing their investment in IoT and tech-based solutions.
What is a chatbot?
A communication tool that facilitates quick interaction between the people and the service provider, in this case, the bank. AI powered chatbot has taken over many human tasks and proved to be more effective and productive in solving specific customer queries. Chatbot eliminates the need for phones, emails, and text message conversations and offers quick solutions to interact and get certain answeres quickly. It also eliminates the scope of human error, which in the past has cost banks losses worth thousands of dollars.
How is a chatbot influencing the banking sector?
In this modern era, when communication is just a click away, customers expect a steady flow of conversation with their service providers; some try to approach via phone support, email support, via social network, etc. This need and demand for constant communication further amplify in a sector like banking, where a vast amount of money is involved.
This can put a lot of burden on the banks. As per the report, an ideal bank employee handles 100 to 150 customers on an average day. This includes basic questions as well as complex issues. A chatbot can easily take over many tasks, straightforward question answering based on behaviors, and prior experience, leaves customer service representatives with more time to solve complicated queries.
The report shows that chatbot is a lot faster than humans and save an average of 4 minutes per customer. That is 60% less time being spent on a chat. It can drastically reduce the wait time and increase productivity. By mentioning some adaptation data or any current example
What are the benefits of a chatbot?
Chatbot has the following benefits:
1. Unstopped by barriers of time: As opposed to humans, the chatbot does not need to rest or go home. They can actively assist 24×7 customers. Chatbot gives banking sector an edge as they can function at any hour of the day, solving more queries and reducing the workload of their employees.
2. Reduce costs: Chatbot is relatively cost-effective and requires basic up-gradation or maintenance costs as opposed to employee remunerations. They also solve a lot more customer queries in a given time that can ultimately profit organizations.
3. Easy to use: Unlike banking applications, the chatbot does not require customers to download anything. They are simple to use and offer personalized features for pleasant customer experience.
4. Easy to collect feedback: Chatbot has automated feedback questions that customers can answer at the end of the chat, This is an easy and cost-effective way for banking sector organizations to gather customer feedback.
5. Function across platforms: Chatbot can be used across platforms like social media (Facebook messengers), websites, apps, WAP etc. This makes it easy for customers to reach out for help as per their ease and preference.
6. Personalized touch: Chatbot has been developed to interact with humans and offer a personal touch to the conversation. The customer receives a timely resolution as well as experiences a pleasant conversation with the AI system.
7. Help in lead generation: Thanks to the personalization feature, a chatbot is also helpful in inviting new customers to join the bank upon visiting the website.
What are the limitations of a chatbot?
Just like another tool, chatbot, too, have few limitations. For example:
1. Lack of human emotion and intelligence: Chatbot still fall behind on human emotions in specific situations and can seem robotic while answering certain complex questions. Fortunately, this gap is decreasing by the day with new and advancement programs.
2. Unsuitable for some customers: In case the customer is multilingual, or uses a region-specific language, the chatbot may or may not be able to carry out the conversation efficiently. This can be a problem in a country like India, where people speak multiple languages and often slip in regional references in their conversations.
3. Some customers still like the age-old format of calling the bank and speaking to a customer service representative to solve their issues, no matter how big or small it may be.
4. Requires technical expertise: Although chatbot is designed to reduce human workload, banking sector organizations still need to employ human resources with technical knowhow to handle and manage this chatbot.
5. Limited to direct questions: Chatbot is efficient in answering direct questions. They are also equipped to answer questions one by one. If the customer asks multiple questions in a single breath, the answers are likely to be inaccurate and incomplete.
6. The fear of taking over humans: Just like any other form of technology, the fear of technology taking over humans always lingers in the air when using a chatbot. Many people are still uncomfortable using them and prefer to go the old fashioned route.
To sum it up
Although chatbot is increasingly becoming popular in the banking sector, there are still loopholes in the process that need to be addressed. However, the speed at which technology is advancing is a clear indication of how rapidly AI is growing. The time when chatbot effectively takes over complex customer queries doesn’t seem far away. Only time can tell if they can indeed take over the banking industry, but for how, sitting back and taking advantage of these new and advanced features seems like an excellent place to be in.
