Using Data and AI to Deepen Banking Customer Relationships

According to McKinsey, about 60% of banking customers use digital channels and 25% of all bank sales occur digitally. Banks are capitalizing on this by broadening their digital channels to build stronger customer relationships, increase brand loyalty, and generate more revenue. Yet this digitalization is a double-edged sword. As banks offer more value, customers are given more incentive to switch providers if they find a better offer.

In a world of enticing digital alternatives like Ally Bank and Chime, these better offers are just a click away. As the competition grows, traditional banks must level up by harnessing the huge amounts of data being generated across their digital channels.

Avaya’s new report reveals key insights for banks to build an effective data strategy across their digital channels. Here are a few ways banks can use data and AI to deepen customer relationships and generate more revenue, from simple applications to more advanced:

Transcribe conversations in real-time so customers don’t have to repeat themselves.

AI-powered real-time transcription ensures agents understand customers the first time, so they never have to ask them to repeat themselves — especially sensitive information like credit card numbers, addresses, and social security numbers.

Send automatic notifications across customers’ preferred channels.

This could be something as simple as sending customers a code via SMS for two-factor authentication to proactive notifications about upcoming payments (“Your next loan payment is coming up on [date]”), relevant offers (“You’ve been pre-approved for a travel rewards credit card with 0% interest for 12 months”), and more.

Digitally redirect mobile callers to a self-service experience.

Detect when a customer is calling from a mobile device and ask them if they would like to engage in a digital experience instead of being routed to an agent. If the customer accepts, they will be automatically routed to your mobile banking app (if you have one) or they will receive a text message that contains a URL to continue their self-service experience. At any point, the customer can leave the self-service experience and return to the queue to wait for a live agent. When done right, this helps offload incoming call volume (reserving agents for more complicated issues) and builds trust in your bank’s digital prowess, driving repeat use that reduces interaction costs.

Route calls and chats from customers to the best resource versus subjecting them to frustrating agent transfers.

For example, you could route long-time customers — categorized as being with your bank for 10+ years — directly to a VIP hotline for special care. This routing can take place regardless of the channel a customer uses to initiate contact (i.e., voice, SMS, chatbot, mobile app).

Give “next best actions” to agents/employees when serving customers.

Real-time screen pops can be pushed to agents that offer relevant information based on a consolidated view of a customer’s entire digital journey. This includes recent transactions and interactions, as well as the channels those interactions occurred on. For example, a screen pop may be triggered containing information from your knowledgebase about your overdraft policy based on data that indicates a customer missed a payment two days ago. There could also be information about what the agent is allowed to do based on the customer’s seniority or approved offers to keep them happy.

Use conversational sentiment scoring, which identifies and intercepts a customer conversation that is going poorly.

Provide agents with deeper insight into customers’ emotions to better serve them and allow supervisors to intercept interactions to remediate and improve satisfaction in real-time while the conversation is happening (versus waiting for the customer, who is likely still upset, to leave a negative review in a post-call survey).

Uncover business intelligence that was previously invisible in the voice channel.

Track customer conversations about pricing issues, new policy changes, and service issues that provide vital business intelligence to your organization. Analysis of issue resolution typically occurs 2-3 days after customer contact. By leveraging the data that flows through customer conversations, this his can be done in real-time to provide agents with training faster.

There’s a goldmine of data within digital channels that banks need to capitalize on to build stronger customer relationships and generate more revenue. Learn more about the key elements banks should consider to digitally evolve with Avaya’s research. View the full report, Five Recent Trends Shaping the Banking Industry.