This is the age of the chatbot. Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate human speech. They have implications for customer service since they can help automate these processes especially in industries involving well-defined and narrow procedures. Banking is prime example of this since most customers are transferring funds, checking their balance or scheduling automatic payments, etc… Mobile Apps are one way to do this but it involves going to an App marketplace and downloading an app first which takes up valuable storage space on your phone. Chatbots, on the other hand, are deployed via SMS to customers need only save the number for the banking chatbot on their phone and the chatbot can assist them with their banking needs. Here are five banking chatbots that are already making people’s lives easier.
Swedbank’s Nina
In recent year’s Sweden’s banks are having a major customer satisfaction problem with only 20% of Swedes reporting they’re satisfied with their bank and many banks are turning to AI and chatbots to fix this. Swedbank developed Nina, a female banking chatbot with the help of Nuance Communications. Nina has approximately 40,000 conversations a month and she accurately resolves 80% of these conversations herself. That’s 32,000 phone calls to the bank averted and countless hours of productivity saved for bank employees who can use that time for other things.
Bank of America’s Erica
Erica (cleverly taken from the word “America”) is Bank of America’s female chatbot. Not only can Erica automate simpler banking transactions like transfers and payments, she even provides some financial advice to customers. She tracks your monthly spending habits and can suggest how much you should be paying down your credit card each month to reduce the amount you’ll pay in interest.
Capital One’s Eno
Capital One took part of their name (One) and came up with the anagram “Eno” as a name for their chatbot. Capital One chose to make their chatbot gender neutral. Ask it what it’s name is and it will reply that it is binary. Like other chatbots on this list, Eno assists customers by giving them requested bank account info and helping out with credit card payments.
SEB’s Aida
Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB for short) is the second Swedish bank on this list. Their customer service chatbot, Aida, is actually the second chatbot they’ve developed. They already had an internal chatbot named Amelia that assisted bank employees with IT issues. In just three weeks Amelia held over 4,000 conversations with more than 700 employees solving a majority of their problems unassisted. SEB is hopeful that Aida can do the same thing, but for customers with banking issues rather than employees with IT issues.
Wells Fargo’s still unnamed chatbot
Wells Fargo hasn’t named their chatbot yet so at least for the time being, it’s genderless as well. For now, the functions of this chatbot are limited. It can use natural language processing to tell what a customer is asking it, usually customers are asking for the nearest ATM or for the current balance in their bank account or on their credit card. They hope to add more advanced features soon that will dive deeper into customers’ banking behavior to analyze patterns and be able to offer suggestions.
