How Chatbots Feed Into Millennials Need for Convenience in Banking

In partnership with Infobip

The digitalisation of the banking industry is an ongoing trend that has fundamentally altered the way consumers interact with their banks over the last fifteen years. It all started with moving paper-based statements and transactions online to allowing customers easier access to their financial information through a smartphone app. However, it doesn’t stop here. Introducing Artificial intelligence capable of recognizing the intent of the customers will usher in the next phase of digital banking; reducing the final layer of friction between clients and their bank while delivering a seamless digital banking experience.

As the largest generation in MENA—Millennials have become the primary driving force behind the next phase of digital banking innovation as they are the first generation to embrace a fully digitized lifestyle. A recent study done by Kearney Consultancy Firm found that 97% of MENA’s millennials are on the internet, and 78% of them have digitally interacted with a brand. Having grown up with the internet at their fingertips, Millennials are digital natives with high standards for convenience and fast customer support. Their financial demands are rarely about products; instead, they are a result of four dimensions: money mental models, tasks that need to be completed, financial pressures, and life events.

Why is it the right time to adopt chatbots?

Introducing chatbots in banks has become as ubiquitous as mobile banking apps. In fact, automated chat is expected to take over as much as 85% of all customer service in the next 3-5 years, according to Gartner. The actual widespread adoption of chatbots started from 2015 onwards. That was the point at which banks began to see flat or near-zero revenue growth as a result of declining margins, and they began to focus on new projects to boost revenue sources and cut costs.

But what made them think it is the right time to adopt chatbots? Let’s take a look at three factors that are driving the need for chatbots in banking:

1. The need for speed: Banks need to make chatbots components of critical business processes (like account opening)—not just generic sales and service tools.
2. The need for data: Banks need to make chatbots part of their data management strategies—not just their sales and service strategies.
3. The need for personalization: Banks need to make chatbots part of their marketing strategies—not just as standalone, ad hoc marketing messaging and offer delivery tools.

Chatbots are winning customers over

Designing experiences that meet clients on their chosen channels is a stepping stone for changing how millennials perceive banks and how banks interact with their customers. Let’s take a look at three principles that can help you enhance customer engagement and drive next-generation growth by integrating chatbots into your customer service and and help you focus on one millennial at a time:

1. Delivering Personalized Financial Information to Meet Customers’ Needs

Customers today are seeing fewer human agents in customer service, so providing personalization and customized information and help is a good way to strike a balance while still providing value and a personal connection. On the other hand, Chatbots are becoming more sophisticated, and with the integration of big data, they can be very beneficial to customers. Infobip’s Answers is an in-app chatbot that has access to user account information and can deliver entirely customized information, assistance, and even financial advice based on that data.

2. Providing a Secure Omnichannel Experience

When building trust in digital financial services, consumers look for safety and stability through personalized experiences and advice. Customers are more likely to stick with banks and financial institutions that make it easy to join and use their services through their preferred channel. Infobip’s omnichannel solutions ensure data protection, compliance, safe integrations for payments while allowing banks to personalize their customer engagement by communicating over multiple chat apps and modern channels such as WhatsApp, and even their mobile app; guaranteeing to keep customers engaged and secure at different touchpoints.

3. Enabling Frictionless, 24/7 Customer Interactions

When messaging applications first became popular a few years ago, they allowed businesses to engage with their customers in a more casual, immediate, and contextual manner. Customers, on the other hand, recently reported that their expectations for brand response times via chat applications were higher than actual response times. Infobip’s chat-building platform, Answers, offers your customers an intelligent automated self-service option that improves the efficiency of your contact center agents by offloading FAQs from them and providing your customers with fast, “Always-on” customer service over their preferred channel. 

Introducing chatbots in the Finance sector

Edenred UAE, one of MENA’s leading financial institutions, reported a 92% decrease in wait time and 69% of increased self-serviced chats during the first few months of using Answers through WhatsApp. They embraced the chatbot building solution to provide 24/7 self-service options for money transfer queries over one of the most preferred communication channels in the Middle East. By using Answers to set up a WhatsApp chatbot, Edenred UAE was able to rapidly scale its customer support and increase its overall customer satisfaction.

Automated customer service means more convenience

Automating customer service and internal processes and workflows can be a challenge, to say the least. Therefore, banks should focus on making it easier for customers to bank with them by reducing the amount of work required of them, while at the same time providing a convenient, digital-first experience. At Infobip, we can provide you with the right tools and global experts that can help make the transition easier. Learn how we help banks win on convenience by visiting our customer stories page, or downloading our most recent case study, today.