Artificial intelligence can save issuers' customer relationships

PaymentsSource
Jordi Torras, 16 February 2018

When it comes to money, customers want easy access. With 90% of transactions already taking place online, customer demand is shifting toward convenience.

Yet, with less face-to-face interaction, could issuers be losing their ability to build relationships? How can banks use a mobile payment or other transactions to help customers feel appreciated, cared for and valued?

A practical approach to ensuring customers stay is to first determine what customers want, and second is to identify and address shortcomings. One solution that banks are using to address these issues is artificial intelligence.

Through chats, contact-center calls, emails and tickets, AI is being used to expand consumers' access to services. Built with an extensive financial knowledge base, AI can provide seamless, tailored, interactive responses to customer queries that help companies determine what customers want and need. Customer questions are answered, support tickets are resolved and satisfaction rises with the use of AI.

Artificial intelligence fully understands human language and is designed to solve problems in real-time. But what is more appealing, is the bot’s potential to transform and strengthen the customer’s lifetime value. At the core of artificial intelligence is machine learning, which enables the bot to gather predictive insights on what the customer might want to do next.

As customers engage with AI, it begins to function as an AI-powered conversation engine, handling routine transactions and asking support questions. The bot is also continuously learning and gathering and storing information about each individual customer. The bot’s ability to anticipate what services the customer might need next becomes invaluable. AI’s cross-selling technology provides the customer with information that matches the customer’s searches for the facts and figures they will need to take the next step.

This technology can also be used to identify service gaps so that the bank can recognize missed opportunities and improve and refine its own service offerings.

Regarding workflow and personnel management within the bank, bots can be used to support the existing customer service team. The bots can handle routine queries, freeing bank employees to handle more challenging and complex services, such as identifying the best interest rate package.

If we look historically at the way machines have created more opportunities, AI has the potential to create new types of jobs that we may not even realize exist right now.

Despite AI's potential to transform the payments and financial services industries, humans will still be needed to provide insight and guidance. But to help retain customers in an app-driven online world, AI is a solution that not only helps banks be more responsive to their customers, but can point them to new ways to increase their value.

This article was licensed through Dow Jones Direct.

Tags: Innovation, Technology