Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming the way businesses and organizations handle their customer interactions across many industries. The banking and financial sectors are no exception. And even though implementing AI contact center solutions for finance like chatbots and voice bots does come with certain challenges and risks – especially in the financial industry that deals with highly sensitive customer data – the benefits certainly outweigh the risks.
In fact, according to a recent IBM study, two-thirds (66%) of banking and financial markets CEOs surveyed said that the potential productivity gains from AI and automation are so great that they must accept the risks to stay competitive.
Opportunities presented by AI are truly immense in the financial sector. Here’s how exactly implementing AI chatbots and voice bots can automate, optimize, and improve contact center operations for businesses and organizations in the banking and financial industry.
To start off, let’s quickly walk through what AI chatbots and voice bots are and how they actually work.
AI chatbots
AI chatbots (also known as conversational AI bots) use AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to interact with users through natural dialogue. Unlike simple rule-based chatbots that were only able to handle simple conversations, AI-driven chatbots are much more advanced and sophisticated. They interact with users in a way a human agent would, they are friendly and empathetic, and, most importantly, they use Machine Learning (ML) to learn from past interactions and become smarter over time. The VoiceSpin AI chatbot is an excellent example of what these solutions are capable of.
AI voice bots
AI voice bots (otherwise known as AI voice agents or AI voice assistants) interact with users through voice using Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), text-to-speech, and Natural Language Generation (NLG), among other technologies. Similarly to AI chatbots, AI voice bots are able to maintain natural-sounding dialogue and become even more efficient over time by continuously learning from past conversations thanks to Machine Learning capabilities. AI voice bots can answer common questions, provide relevant information, qualify leads, and even perform specific actions like booking appointments.
AI bots can handle customer support 24/7
First and foremost, AI chatbots and AI voice bots enable you to deliver instant customer support 24/7 and minimize customer frustrations associated with long wait times. According to data from Salesforce, 83% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company.
Unlike human reps who work in shifts and require breaks, AI-powered bots can operate tirelessly around the clock and support your customer outside of your regular business hours, on weekends, and holidays, without ever putting anyone on hold. And this is particularly critical for businesses in the banking and financial industries where instantly available support can truly make a difference. Here are just a few examples of questions that well-trained AI bots can easily answer:
AI bots can resolve issues with no human intervention
AI chatbots and AI voice bots aren’t just great at answering frequently asked questions and providing information. Some of the most advanced solutions can perform certain actions like checking account balances and transaction history, delivering payment status updates, resetting passwords and updating account information, alerting customers proactively about suspicious transactions, and do so much more – all without human intervention.
By automatically managing these routine queries, AI bots can free up your human reps to focus on more complex issues and those interactions that require a human touch.
AI bots can deliver personalized experiences
What’s particularly remarkable about AI-based chatbots and voice bots is that they can be seamlessly integrated with your CRM, databases, and other back-end systems. That allows the bots to instantly pull the available information about each customer and deliver more personalized experiences. That may include the history of previous interactions and customer preferences. Based on historical data, AI bots can offer personalized product recommendations, helping you improve customer experience. Moreover, AI bots can track customer sentiment in real time and adjust their responses accordingly to ensure a positive experience with every interaction.
AI chatbots and AI voice bots can also be set to seamlessly transfer interactions to a live agent if an issue requires human intervention while preserving the entire context of the conversation.
AI bots can help financial contact centers reduce costs
It’s common for businesses in the financial and banking sectors to receive high numbers of incoming requests, both voice and digital, especially during peak hours. AI chatbots and voice bots can handle hundreds of simultaneous interactions, while your human reps are only able to handle one interaction at a time. On top of that, some of the most advanced AI bots are multilingual, which allows them to support customers in different languages.
What it ultimately means is that the implementation of AI-powered chatbots and voice bots can lead to substantial cost savings for banking and financial sectors as there is no need to hire additional staff to handle the increased call volume.
When implemented strategically, AI-driven chatbots and voice bots can truly optimize contact center operations in financial institutions. No wonder these solutions are now being increasingly adopted across companies and organizations in the finance and banking industries. From automatically responding to routine requests and delivering 24/7 support to improving operational efficiency and reducing support-related costs – AI bots are definitely a valuable investment. And as AI technologies continue to advance, AI chatbots and voice bots will only become smarter and more efficient.
Disclaimer: MoneyMagpie is not a licensed financial advisor and therefore information found here including opinions, commentary, suggestions or strategies are for informational, entertainment or educational purposes only. This should not be considered as financial advice. Anyone thinking of investing should conduct their own due diligence.