Finn AI, the world’s leading AI-powered conversational banking technology provider, today announces the findings from its research report: What’s My Password? Customers Ask the Simplest Things, that analyzes customer service requests for banks. The research found that nearly 80% of customer call drivers are basic service requests, with the most common being: account access issues such as a lost password.
“Bank contact centers should be focused on issues where they can deliver the most value to customers, but instead they are mostly completing simple, routine tasks,” said Jake Tyler, CEO and co-founder, Finn AI. “This emphasis on transactional service requests means that many banks are offering the most basic customer experience at best.”
The research found that nearly 70% of queries to customer service are basic or transactional, routine requests for information and actions on an existing customer account. Not surprisingly, the most common requests are categorized as account access: a password reset or login confusion (28.3%); followed by modifying payment amounts/frequency (4.3%).
The next largest group–or 25% of all requests–are complex. These are customer specific problems or special cases that require detailed attention and assistance to resolve. In these circumstances, the customer has attempted other digital methods of finding the answer before reaching for live help. The most common complex driver is filing a dispute/complaint (5.2% of all queries) followed by general technical issues (5.1%). Finally, the research found that nearly 21% of all queries to be acquisition focused, with the most common transactional being applying for an account (11.3% of all inquiries).
“Complex requests offer the opportunity to provide personal service, with a warm human touch, and cement the customer or member loyalty to the institution,”added Tyler. “This is where customer experience reputations are made and where customer service agents can really shine.”
Chatbots can change this dynamic for banks. Instead of hiring more agents, banks can free up the time of existing agents by offloading routine tasks using an AI powered chatbot. Because such a high proportion of the requests are transactional, the potential for operational savings by the bank is significant. Even more valuable is the potential impact on customer service. By deflecting the high volume of routine traffic to an automated system, conversational AI can free up the live, human service and sales representatives for high value conversations that create a lasting positive impression.
