Chatbots are no longer the once annoying systems that offer the same predefined answers, leaving you with the feeling of a one-dimensional conversation.
Redefined by AI (Artificial Intelligence), they go far beyond bots and act like smart digital assistants that engage and delight customers with a touch of a human-like interaction combined with a personalized experience and a sense of realness.
It is not a surprise that leading banks and financial services companies worldwide are racing to maximize the benefits of AI-powered chatbot features.
According to The Financial Brand, AI can save the banking industry more than USD 1 trillion by 2030. And the rise of bots is playing a key role here.
But a chatbot is not only about saving money.
It is an effective technology solution that financial service providers use to offer exceptional customer journeys with the help of fast responses, 24/7 availability, personalized service, meeting customers’ goals and improving their financial well-being.
We are witnessing an exploding number of chatbots around the world. In a crowded chatbot space, it is vital to provide a bot solution that brings together the best out of the Human and Artificial Intelligence worlds.
Let's see which characteristics and features can help your chatbot exceed customer expectations, taking financial services to the next level.
1. Conversational UX
Conversational UX is a user experience that mimics a human conversation through natural language-based technology, such as chat, text, and voice.
The final goal is for the experience to feel like a natural chat between people, despite one of the parties being a bot. It should feel personal and even add a sense of empathy.
The benefits of conversational UX are significant for financial services companies because it promotes customer engagement and loyalty. Conversational UX makes customers feel that someone truly understand them and responds to their personal financial needs.
In other words, a well-made conversational UX is capable to humanize a bot. To be successful, a chatbot UX design strategy should offer functionalities, such as:
- Managing questions and complaints from customers
- Finding human assistance when the user needs more information
- Welcome message
- Measuring customer satisfaction in order to achieve further improvements
- Typing indicators
- Avatars for creating a more friendly feel
2. Omnichannel Experience
It goes without saying that your chatbot should be available across channels in order to engage customers wherever it is most convenient for them.
Today, the omnichannel experience is one of the most critical parts of any modern company - be it financial or retail. In the financial industry, omnichannel capability ensures banking without borders.
An omnicapable chatbot provides effortless interactions between your business and your clients no matter which channel they use.
For example, your chatbot could be available via the following channels:
- Your website
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Viber
- Software Group’s Mobile Wallet or other wallet solutions
- Mobile banking apps, etc.
Customers need to be able to enjoy a similar experience on all communication channels.
3. Personal Finance Assistance
Today’s banking customers demand comprehensive personal assistance, especially when it comes to managing their money.
And chatbots, as interactive digital agents, are perfect for meeting these expectations.
From checking accounts and tracking daily expenses to giving investment advice, the modern chatbot should make you feel like you have a personal banker at your disposal anytime and anywhere.
The Business Wire notes that the global chatbot market is predicted to reach USD5.63 billion by 2023. This means an age of personal robot-advisors is coming.
Here are a few examples of personal finance chatbot features that ensure a high-standard experience which is proactive, contextual, and personalized:
- Account balance check
- Mini statement
- Spending analysis
- Inline credit scores
- Updates on financial health indicators
- ATM locator
- Product clarifications
- Extracting data for bills and other services from third party systems
4. Lead Generation and Cross-Selling Activities
Let's say a person visits your website and is welcomed with a friendly ‘Hello! Welcome to <your site>. How can we help you today?’ Then the person is motivated to ask questions about your products and is driven in the right direction.
This type of engagement could even result in the purchase of a new service or in a bank account opening.
A chatbot can be programmed to ask particular questions, to automate the initial interaction with prospects, to make relevant product offers and other chatbot selling tactics.
Thereby your chatbot is able to collect marketing leads, unlock new upselling and cross-selling opportunities and help you sell everything from credit cards and overdrafts to life insurance services.
5. Automated Loan Assistance
A chatbot can help customers navigate your website and aid them in applying for a new loan by answering some specific and simple questions.
What’s more, an advanced financial chatbot is able to provide guidance for loan applications and to automatically respond to loan inquiries. In this way it makes the process of loan origination seamless and user-friendly at a reduced service cost.
In addition, as a digital assistant, the bot can send clients monthly loan statements and payment reminders.
Here is a list of chatbot features for automated loan assistance:
- Loan inquiries
- Loan origination
- Integration with core banking systems, loan application and loan management software
- Monthly statements
- Payment reminders
6. Data Privacy and Security
Data privacy and security are a top priority for any business. However, when it comes to banks and financial service providers, your whole reputation may depend on it.
In general, chatbots in the financial industry handle sensitive data, such as bank accounts, credit/debit card information, and others.
By providing a conversational experience across multiple channels, chatbots could be attractive targets for hacker exploitation.
Therefore, it is critical that your chatbot’s architecture has built-in security measures from the onset, complying with security requirements across multiple communication and geographical channels.
Some of the best practices that ensure a secure chatbot solution include:
- End-to-end encryption
- Customer authentication and user identity
- Secure protocols such as HTTPS
- Defense against malware or distributed denial of services (DDOS)
7. Bot Analytics & Reporting
"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."
- Peter Drucker.
Do you know how quickly and how effectively your bot resolves customer queries? You need to constantly analyze, measure and refine your chatbot’s performance and strategy to make it successful.
Therefore, a chatbot should provide an analytics dashboard, helping you monitor its progress over time for key statistics.
Analytics empowers financial organizations to track and report the efficiency of the chats, to build a deeper understanding of customers, and to act on data in real-time.
Key chatbot metrics to monitor:
- Total users, active users, new users
- Customer satisfaction ratings
- Feedback submissions
- The number of chat connections and chat duration
- Response time
- The number of unanswered chats
- Chatbot fallback responses
- The channels where users come from
- Retention rate
8. Seamless CRM Integration
Integrations are a crucial part of a successful chatbot marketing strategy. Your chatbot should effortlessly integrate with leading CRM systems and business apps, at best - code-free.
CRM integration enables consistent cross-channel customer relationship management, helping you increase customer retention.
A chatbot platform that ensures easy integration with your systems of record (ERP, CRM, etc.) allows instant access to the right data at the right moment, saving time for employees and customers, while creating benefits that scale.
9. Rich Messaging
Rich messaging is a set of chatbot features that allows the user to view interactive elements such as images, emoticons, cards, buttons, videos, etc.
And while this surely increases the visual appeal of your bot, rich media also make the bot enjoyable, expressive and keeps the user engaged.
Moreover, a chatbot represents your brand and enhances your digital marketing efforts. Every aspect of the chat solution should ensure a great user experience that stimulates delightful emotions and attitudes towards using the bot.
10. Multi-language Conversation
Your bot should be able to engage your customers not only over any channel and device but also in multiple languages.
This feature makes your bot more accessible and sophisticated and provides you with a strong competitive advantage.
Having a bot ready to chat with new clients in their native language allows you to reach a bigger audience, saves customer frustration, and increases customer satisfaction.
How Can Software Group Help You Improve Your Customer Service with an Advanced Chatbot?
As a company that drives digital transformation for financial organizations across the globe, we know what is needed to build a chatbot that supports, engages, and delights your customers.
Every financial service provider is unique. We create bots that respond to your target customers’ profile and specific business processes.
Bringing together cutting-edge technology and deep understanding of the financial industry, we can help you engage your customers with a conversational bot over any channel and device, in any language, anywhere, and anytime.
With your customer's journey in mind, Software Group carefully combines chatbot features to provide rich, intuitive, effective, and human-like bot experiences that exceed modern customer expectations. Contact us today to discuss your chatbot solution with us.
Sources:
- The Financial Brand, ‘Artificial Intelligence and The Banking Industry’s $1 Trillion Opportunity’, 2019.
- Business Wire, ‘The Global Chatbot Market is Forecast to Reach $5.63 Billion by 2023 -- Asia Pacific to Witness the Highest Growth - ResearchAndMarkets.com, 2019.
