By Ravi Saraogi, Co-founder & President APAC, Uniphore
The banking and financial services industry (BFSI) sector is ever changing. The emergence and growth of Fintech alongside the evolution of digitally savvy customers, has augmented the use of new technologies and increased the need of new ways of communication. Especially in times of dramatic challenges such as COVID-19, the use of new and intelligent technology will help financial enterprises to remain competitive and meet customer’s rising demands and expectations.
Today, many processes have been digitized and transactions can take place anywhere, anytime. Services like checking balances, money transfers, requests for refunds, bill payments, etc. are done mostly through mobile apps and rely heavily on connected automation back-end systems to be successfully completed.
However, there are more complex operations which require human intervention and that is typically when customers reach out to contact centers for assistance. A significant pain point for customers during this pandemic is they are forced to navigate through complex IVR systems, and they still don’t get the required information. That is largely due to the fact that the call centers are not deploying automation and AI technology to solve their business problems. Additionally, agents are unable to staff centralized contact centers, in accordance with government regulations. With current restrictions mandating work from home, contact center operation leaders are struggling to set up a WFH environment that is safe, secure and will ultimately help maintain business continuity. This is an area ripe for Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Machine Learning.
In this technology driven world, every bank is aware of the fact that every customer is unique and valuable. They know the importance of providing bespoke services to their customers. The question is ‘how will they do this? Which is the right technology for them?’
Conversational Service Automation (CSA) is a new category of emerging technology designed for call centers. CSA can be leveraged to re-imagine customer journeys and also enhance customer engagement. CSA is a technology platform that uses emerging technologies such as AI, Speech Recognition, NLP and Machine Learning, alongside Robotic Process Automation capabilities to empower customers and contact center agents to have productive, pleasant and efficient conversations. More importantly, CSA can deliver both simple and automated solutions to support call center agents working remotely, while simultaneously ensuring that each agent adheres to all stipulated regulations and compliances required by authorities specific to the BSFI sector.
Diving into this a little further, Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) are part of the CSA platform, which is powered by AI and automation capabilities. These IVAs allow customers to effectively self-service their requirements in a faster and more efficient way, thus reducing the burden of calls fielded by human agents. In the circumstance of a distressed caller, CSA has the ability to identify it and can transfer the call with the relevant information to a human agent, immediately and seamlessly. These are just a few of the advantages that Conversational Service Automation can offer for the BFSI sector.
CSA technology powered by AI, Speech Recognition and Automation increases efficiencies as it can work in the background to feed the human agent with the details of the customer, the reason for the call and the solutions that can be offered, etc., all in real time. This allows the agent to process significantly more calls in the same time frame, as he/she does not have to place the caller on hold in order to pull up information. Automation also allows for the after-call summary to be generated thus saving the agent from additional time spend. In a critical time, such as COVID-19, where there is high anxiety and unprecedently large in-bound call volumes, CSA ensures that the customer can be adequately addressed, with little or no human error.
CSA can help in delivering a superior customer experience and drive tangible business outcomes. This is the right time for all CX leaders in BFSI companies to explore how CSA can help them reach their business goals.
