How chatbots can make banks more profitable

A few days ago Forbes posted an article about digital transformation in banks that echoed and confirmed many of the things we have discussed in previous posts. Its conclusions were simple: banks need chatbots to achieve a true digital transformation, and they need them now.

Two points, in particular, caught our attention: “horrendously high” abandonment rates for digital product applications, and the need for banks to find the right data. They are both important points to cover, and because we felt the article didn’t do them justice, we decided to expand on it and add our perspective.

Dealing with high abandonment rates

Abandonment rates or abandoned carts are a problem common to many industries. Transactions are usually abandoned either because the potential client wasn’t sure about the decision or because something interrupted them, and they never went back to finish it.

In the latter scenario, the role of chatbots is simple, they can message users through apps like WhatsApp or WeChat and start a conversation to try and win back the client. These apps have much higher open rates when compared to emails, and their conversational nature makes it easier to engage the user.

For clients that don’t have enough information or have questions during the process, chatbots that are built into the webpage can help in both passive and active ways. The passive approach consists of having the chatbot on the site and available to users that may need assistance. The proactive or active approach involves having the chatbot monitor the time a user takes to complete each step and intervene to offer help whenever there is an unusually long delay between steps.

Not all data is born equal

Chatbots are great tools to gather data because they can not only process natural human language but also ask questions to users. From a marketing perspective, one of the most interesting use cases is employing them to understand exactly what problems a customer is facing and what language they use to express themselves.

This is great for marketers (and bankers) because it allows the company to better understand the client and use the knowledge it gains to better market and explain their products. Knowing the ways in which potential customers express their problems can be used to mimic the same language in ad campaigns or to change the way things are explained on-screen.

In a way, chatbots can serve a function similar to that of focus groups but on a much larger scale, allowing companies that use them to gather high-quality data directly from their customers. This type of data removes all the guesswork associated with things like behavior tracking on websites, where the company can see what the users do but has no way of understanding why they do it.

If you are interested in chatbots and would like to get a better idea of how they could help your company, our team of experts will be happy to help. Reach out to them using the link below.