Conversational AI Comes of Age
The COVID-19 pandemic can have far-reaching effects on how the financial services industry interacts with customers, and service centers equipped with conversational AI will come to the fore.
Many banks and other financial firms adapted fairly well when COVID-19 struck. They handled the rise in online and mobile transactions, kept in touch with customers and partners while working from home, and adopted social distancing measures as branches and offices reopened.
That was the easy part. Now the industry should prepare for a wave of customer inquiries as the effects of the pandemic ripple through the economy. That’s likely to put their customer-service centers under stress. Most do not have enough people to handle the expected volume of calls, and most virtual voice assistant systems are not designed to handle complex customer interactions. As a result, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) is set to play a larger role. This is its moment to shine.
The current generation of conversational AI assistants are more sophisticated than their “chatbot” label suggests. They can accurately mimic human voice and intonation, understand speech patterns and make data-driven decisions in real-time. These systems can be scaled quickly to handle a surge in call volumes while providing a customer experience that is efficient and tailored to individual needs.
These features are especially important now, as millions of Americans deal with the financial effects of the pandemic. The percentage of accounts entering financial hardship status — defined as a deferred payment, frozen account or frozen past due payment — has risen dramatically for auto loans, credit cards, mortgages and personal loans, according to credit-reporting company TransUnion.
As an immediate response, many lenders allowed consumers to defer their loan payments. But as those forbearance programs end, consumers may still be under financial stress, and companies should engage with them in a compassionate and effective way.
Conversational AI can make that possible, enabling customers to have a highly personalized experience. Instead of interacting with a virtual voice assistant that has a uniform digital persona, customers get an assistant based on their personal characteristics. An elderly customer, for example, may get a persona that speaks slowly, repeats numbers and allows more time for the customer to gather information. A younger customer could get a persona that speaks more quickly and offers to complete a transaction via a mobile app rather than an agent.
The customer experience can also be enhanced through channeling and adaptive learning, so customers can quickly take the actions they want each time they call.
