Chatbot customer service in the FinTech industry is playing a powerful role in both winning and retaining customers. Fundamentally, financial services is about serving people and ensuring they have the financial security and products they need. In fintech, it can be easy to get distracted by the innovation of a given startup and the fantastic tech being created. But it’s important to not lose sight of the end-user!
Against incumbent financial services companies, conversational AI chatbots have been a significant development. FinTechs have been able to outmanoeuvre these giants, providing more intuitive and nimbler products and services. However, fintechs do inevitably lack the resources of these large incumbents and this is glaringly obvious from a customer service perspective. Banks, insurers and other large financial institutions will have dedicated teams of customer service personnel on hand to answer queries, handle complaints and even assist in onboarding.
This is something fintechs simply could not accommodate. Your average fintech startup will be a small but dedicated team, where margins can be under pressure. This does not make opening a call centre to answer queries 24/7 a viable option!
Chatbot-driven customer interactions changed this. This innovative use of tech has allowed customer service to be automated, providing a function that can interact with customers to see to their questions and concerns. Simple chatbot interaction models can easily support customer queries as they come through, helping direct people to sources of information, providing deliberated answers or even taking down information for chatbot predictive analytics. The simplicity and ease of a chatbot has begun to outcompete traditional customer services. Unlike with a call centre, you can instantly talk with a chatbot. A chatbot will not put you through to several departments in quick succession. And a chatbot will not play grating hold music!
Making customer service chatbots work
However, there are challenges. First, chatbots are not a complete replacement for human customer service support. A good chatbot should be able to handle most queries (such as ‘what is the cancellation period on my income protection policy’ and ‘what do I need to port a mortgage?’) but these can struggle with complex queries.
If someone had a detailed query about their bank account or was annoyed with fees they were paying on an insurance policy, a chatbot will not be suited to this. In fact, if someone could only talk to a chatbot at a fintech about complex questions and concerns they would most likely become annoyed and want to switch. For this reason, it’s important for chatbots to just be a first port of call. These can quickly sift through the hundreds of daily queries a client bank will generate, but there should be an option for people to talk to a dedicated customer service professional. For example, although Cardaq Limited – a fast-growing FinTech company from the UK – is incorporating chatbot support in its upcoming Pridepay app, human support will still be available for emergencies.
Financial chatbot compliance is also a big issue. A good chatbot should be a helpful source of information and answers for general queries and concerns. Should someone have detailed requirements to do with their account, a chatbot would likely not be the best place to do so. For instance, it should not be possible for someone to use a chatbot to pretend to be someone else. Even if there were numerous chatbot security protocols, in the interests of compliance and security it’s best if a chatbot only handles generic questions and no sensitive information is communicated.
And finally, chatbots require the best technology to work. When someone uses a chatbot they want it to quickly ‘understand’ the situation and give them the right information they need. Nobody wants to answer numerous questions from a chatbot just to be given an overly generic response. With AI and machine learning, chatbots are now entering a new era of usefulness. Chatbots can now learn from customer interactions, identify trends and make correct assumptions to quickly ascertain the problem and instantly deliver a solution.
What great chatbots can mean?
With the right investment, chatbots can take a fintech’s customer service to the next level.
This isn’t just about storing and analysing chatbot customer enquiries and helping map out the chatbot customer journey. Instead, it speaks to customer satisfaction as well. People are inundated with choice about their financial service providers and there is a daily growing list of fintechs in the market. As competition increases, the digital customer experience in fintech will be a key area. People will gravitate towards the brands that give them the best support and mean the least hassle. Chatbots can play a vital role here and cannot be ignored.
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