[PART 2] How Top Banks Leverage IVAs to Enable Self-Service: Two Banking Use Cases of IVAs

By Richard Simons, CEO of Creative Virtual USA

This is the second post in our seven-part blog series – How Top Banks Leverage Intelligent Virtual Assistants to Enable Self-Service.

TWO BANKING USE CASES OF INTELLIGENT VIRTUAL AGENTS

To give you a better idea of how financial institutions are leveraging intelligent virtual assistants within their organizations, below are two examples of how two of our banking clients using have deployed IVAs.

Client#1: Major Banking Institution

What makes this system so special is that the profile of the customer is used to answer the questions when they are logged in. For example, if a customer asks a question about annual fees, they can see all of their credit cards with annual fees. If a customer says that they want to make a payment, then the system brings up their personal accounts which require a payment such as credit card, mortgage and/or loans. If you only had one account, then it would take you directly to the payment page for that account.

The system looks at the company’s backend and knows which products and services the customers have. By doing that, we’re providing more specific answers to their customers, which in turn provides higher customer satisfaction. This particular system operates from the search box for easy access, and also runs in Spanish to facilitate the majority of their customers.

Client #2: Major Financial Services Company

This system was built from live chat transcripts, which we find to be a great medium to build these knowledgebases. By using live chat transcripts, you are truly using the voice of the customer and what it is they want; then you’re converting that into an automated system. This IVA is deployed on a part of the company’s website that is very informational and as a result, generates a lot of questions through live chat.

Since implementing the IVA, 80% of the people that use the system no longer need to use live chat. And because customers may be required to enter personally identifiable information to answer their question, we’ve also included what we call a personal information mask. If anybody enters anything numeric like their social security number, that information is immediately marked over so that it’s not recorded in the transcript, but is still used to provide a personalized answer via the IVA.

Surveying the Results

Each system includes in-conversation surveys to gather feedback. Therefore, throughout the system you will see questions like, “Was this information helpful?” If you say “No,” the system will escalate you to some form of contact; for instance live chat if it’s available.  You can also drive customers to a live person via telephone by asking, “Do you want to speak to someone about your accounts?” We can make it as specific as you want. So, instead of giving them a generic number, we can give them a direct telephone number that takes them where they need to go to get the answer to their question. We can also go one step further and parse through the IVR. When the user validates within the IVR, the IVR can immediately take them to where they need to be to solve their problem without having to go through the standard IVR questions.

This is what drives the work we do, and it’s really interesting. You’ll see the satisfaction and the dissatisfaction metrics in our reporting. Sometimes you’ll find that you’ve given the right answer, but the customer isn’t satisfied. There’s not a lot you can do with that, but you have the information to make improvements where you can.  In the end, we’re just trying to help people get to the right place – quickly and easily.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Stay tuned for the third part of this blog series – Integration of Intelligent Virtual Agents in Non-Traditional Channels. Subscribe to our blog so you don’t miss a post. You can also watch the 30 minute webinar to see a live demo of how top banks are leveraging intelligent virtual agents.

Did you miss the previous post? Here’s part 1.