The Financial Services industry is squeezed by mounting financial pressure due to an increase in risk tied to financial volatility. A higher volume of customer service enquiries and the need to further develop digital engagement is high now.
The shift towards digital engagement in the last seven years is drastic. This is because, consumers are becoming more accustomed to using digital channels such as the mobile banking apps, artificial intelligence (AI) infused virtual assistants to share immediate security alerts, and transferring money. Consumers today are interacting with AI in major places.
Conversational AI is the application of machine learning to allow humans to interact naturally with devices, machines, and computers using their own speech. The device works to understand the person’s speech and find the best answer with its own natural-sounding speech. It may sound simple, but the technology behind conversational AI is complex. It is a multi-step process requiring a massive amount of computing power.
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), takes words spoken by a person and converts them into readable text. Natural Language Processing (NLP), understands the context and intent and then generates an intelligent text response. Text-to-Speech (TTS) converts the NLP text response to natural-sounding speech, with human-like intonation and clearly articulated words. Conversational AI can significantly impact the customer service experience.
Customer service agents can deliver an improved customer experience with AI. This enables agents with real-time insights. This can both reduce their workload and deliver a speedier interaction for customers. AI can optimise insights for the service delivered, too. It can measure a customer’s sentiment from their experience. Due to the increased amount of remote working today, organisations are facing increased workloads to process much larger volumes of calls.
Conversational AI can be personalised, customised to the user, and available all day. With a virtual assistant, customers can have a conversational, human-like dialogue with intelligent, instantaneous replies. A virtual assistant can also support customers with disabilities. UK-based NatWest’s digital assistant, Cora, is handling 58% more inquiries year on year. It can also be used to identify fraudulent account. NLP is also able to detect application fraud. By reducing fraud, delivering smoother, faster customer interactions through a virtual assistant or better enabled agents, conversational AI will play a key role in delivering a better customer service experience.
