We already live in a world where fraud detection technology automatically notifies banks’ customers to authenticate with digital codes via alternative communication channels. But proactive notifications are yet to be used to enhance customer experience. Instead, banks expect customer service agents to react to customer issues when they could be supporting their customer’s financial health.
Historically, customers with financial advisors had money to afford the support – and those who needed advice often suffered alone. Digital support is entering the banking industry in more ways than optimizing security: embedded banking, interactive savings plans, and agent superiority are outcomes of the digital transformation.
Some fintech customers can open financial accounts within seconds without an agent, regardless of credit scores, transaction history, and income. At the same time, automated fraud detection and geotagging make it possible to keep information secure. Customers are growing accustomed to predominant digital communication. However, at what point does the agent intervene? And how do they know when it is vital to do so?
Let’s look at how proactive notifications can support agent efficiency while benefiting the customer’s financial health and the bank.
The power of digital interaction
With the support of artificial intelligence (AI), pattern recognition, and open banking data, banks can read where customers are spending in real-time and set up automation to notify the customer of special rewards while informing the agent of any unusual behavior.
Suppose customers just arrived in Madrid, forgetting to tell their bank. After a long journey, they buy a train ticket to get to their apartment, and their bank blocks them from using their card. They spend hours waiting for an agent, still carrying all their luggage. Now envision that their bank shared data with their phone’s geotagging and could locate that they were in Spain – they can use their card freely, and they may even receive a unique promotion from their bank to spend or exchange money abroad.
When banks and third parties share data with the customer’s consent, they can provide personalized products, rewards, and benefits that suit their customer’s needs. The more data available to the bank, the higher chance of fraud protection and accuracy in customer profiles to provide bespoke offers that support the customer’s financial health with low risk to the bank.
In addition, banks are using application programming interfaces (APIs) that provide digital savings plans. Customers can receive personalized notifications to help them reach financial goals and improve their financial health.
Take buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), for example. When banks understand a customer’s financial abilities, the payment method can be promoted healthily, not at the expense of the customer’s existing debt. However, this doesn’t stop shops from offering the payment plan – it’s down to the banks to use their data and help keep customers financially secure. An API that alerts the customer at the point of purchase, whether their bank recommends using BNPL for a particular item, can protect many shoppers unaware of the method’s risks.
With automated solutions, customers can expect to interact more virtually at the time and place they need support, alleviating pressure on the bank’s agent. At the same time, the customer can feel secure the bank understands them by digitally tracking their unique behaviors and sending them personalized rewards.
Customer Service Agents at the ready
As technology takes a proactive approach to notify customers of their spending capabilities, security authentications, and special promotions, customer service agents gain time to focus on deeper issues and react with style. 2022 will see a rise in empathy training and improved data visibility, enabling specialized customer support and customer understanding.
The combination of intelligent design and simple user experience (UX) dashboards gives agents a holistic view of their customers at a glance. With the information readily available and easy to digest, agents can save time on calls and cut straight to the matter at hand, rather than increase the customer’s stress with questions ‘they should know the answer to’.
Machines are to become proactive: Finding contextual information to understand the customer better, telling them apart from the hackers, and helping them spend wisely. Conversational AI can do this by asking questions over time. For example, in cases where customers go over their savings caps: ‘We noticed you’re struggling with your financial goals. Would you like us to amend the cap? Is everything OK?’ – a financial advisor for everyone, imagine that.
Say a customer does run into an issue where a chatbot or FAQ can’t help, the customer service agent is not only there to support but has the exact information accessible in a dashboard to go above and beyond the customer’s issue.
In addition, digital dashboards with automation could trigger to send short surveys. Let’s say a bank notices large sums of money leaving their customers’ accounts to a neobank. AI chatbots or an automated survey could ask them why they use their other card to make their payments. What is it that their current account could do better?
Agents can then read the survey results and design new products their customers will enjoy without putting them, or their bank, at risk.
When banks start asking their customers what they can help with and what kind of service their customers appreciate, they will see their customer loyalty skyrocket. And with the support of digital taking a proactive approach, if a customer does have to interact with a live agent, the agent has the tools and the information to build even more trust with them.
Automated notifications, data-sharing, and a holistic customer view can support banks to financially advise their customers digitally and accurately while informing agents when to intervene.
