Bot Banking: Revolutionizing Financial Strategies

Widespread usage of digital channels has brought about a significant change in many industries, particularly for financial institutions. Consumers are driving the way that interactions are handled, and they expect that banks will revolutionize their approach in the same way that retail outlets and tech enterprises have already begun to do.

Leaders in financial services are now recognizing the opportunities that new technology brings, but in order to stay relevant and maintain the expectations of consumers, modern financial institutions will have to adapt their operations accordingly. Those that do will empower their customers and stand to see significant growth. Those that don’t will find themselves falling by the wayside.

Digitizing Customer Service

Digital channels have become the preeminent means of engagement between enterprises and consumers—emails, websites, online advertisements, videos, etc.

However, most customers find their online experiences lacking; research indicates that less than half of consumers are satisfied with these sorts of interactions. A distressing percentage of companies claimed in 2016 that online sales performed less than desirable and that a major goal in 2017 and beyond is to increase their digital presence.

There’s a bottom line here, and it’s that customer service influences an individual’s decision to do business with any particular enterprise. Modern consumers want fast, easy ways to solve their problems and get their questions answered, in real-time, anytime.

This may sound like an unrealistic demand, but there is a solution, one that many enterprises have already begun to employ.

Bots and Conversational Banking

Conversational banking is a relatively new concept that employs bots to speak the language of the customer—literally, and in a way that is personalized and engaging. While traditional banking is rife with one-way interactions, bots are contextually aware and connect consumers to the information they need via open APIs. Bots use artificial intelligence and machine-learning technology to solve problems and answer questions quickly, easily, and in real time.

Essentially, bots put the consumer in control of the interaction, rather than the other way around, which transforms customer service from something typically dreaded into a satisfying experience. Bots are not only able to offer solutions, but also anticipate the needs of a customer while meeting the demands of a user base that increasingly desires a self-service model.

With SnatchBot, our revolutionary platform blends the smartest ML (machine learning) and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies with the peerless conversational design. SnatchBot  streamlines business workflows and communications with a single message-based interface and robust administrative features.

Factors of a Digital Strategy

As with any policy or action plan, a digital strategy requires careful planning and consideration of several factors. There are, however, three components in particular that are inherent to financial services and, when performed correctly and thoroughly, will lay a solid foundation upon which a digital transformation can be achieved.

Security: Offering enhanced security is paramount; a digital customer banking experience must be able to provide unparalleled levels of security, which will invariably cultivate trust and, by extension, loyalty among consumers. The SnatchBot platform is private, safe and secure; we pride ourselves on providing enterprise-grade security that complies with all regulatory mandates.

Ease of Access: Modern customers want to be able to choose the channel by which they interact with their financial institutions. Multi-channel integration is, historically, a tough problem to surmount—until bots came along. Today’s bots can be deployed over several channels; for example, with SnatchBot, you have the ability to publish your text, voice, or video chatbots easily to all web apps, channels, and chat services, such as Facebook Messenger or Skype, with a single click.

Personalization: Personalization refers to the ability to anticipate a customer’s needs and deliver services and information accordingly. Modern consumers want engaging interactions, not one-way transactions. Not only can bots anticipate the needs of a customer, but for more difficult interactions, a bot can easily be programmed to refer a customer to a human customer service counterpart. Using SnatchBot, for example, enables you to choose whether you want your process to be fully automated, or to add a human input, at which point the bot would divert the inquiry to a live salesperson.

Financial enterprises that are able to integrate those three key factors—security, ease of access, and personalization—into their digital strategy and employ bots effectively will see the advantages in the forms of higher customer engagement, a cultivation of loyalty, and increased sales. Those that don’t may find that they’re unable to maintain profitability in a quickly changing landscape.

Today we published our Bot Banking Template page.  Powered by SnatchBot's Bot-Building Platform.