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Utilizing a chatbot can save staff time and energy but this technology also requires continuous monitoring to ensure it isn’t giving out incorrect information.
Chatbots present an interesting opportunity and risk to the banking industry.
When done right, chatbots can free up valuable time and energy for bank employees, quickly tracking down information and handling simpler customer queries. But there is also the potential to create an experience where a customer must type “human being” over and over into a pop-up window to reach an actual person for help. Certainly, that’s a scenario any banker wants to avoid. 
A chatbot is a type of technology enabled by artificial intelligence (AI). Chatbots use machine learning to quickly retrieve data and natural language processing to simulate simple conversations. Companies have been experimenting with this technology for decades but chatbots have become more sophisticated, with more firms adopting them, over the last few years with advancements in generative AI.
In the banking industry, chatbots are commonly associated with providing answers to simple customer questions, like queries about routing numbers. Brendan Marston, chief operations officer at Bank First Corp., in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, compares customer-facing chatbots to ordering a pizza: Some customers will want to call in their order, but others will prefer to order it digitally.
“We need to meet customers where they are. A lot of customers don’t want to make a phone call or walk into a branch,” says Marston. “It’s never about reducing headcount. It’s about scalability and bandwidth and customer experience.”
But there are opportunities to use the technology beyond answering simple questions. Banks can also deploy chatbots internally to assist employees with quickly finding information about company processes or provide deeper analysis. For example, a bank with a larger strategic goal of maintaining core deposits might use an internal chatbot to identify all customers with a certificate of deposit expiring in the next 60 days. It could then use a customer-facing chatbot to prompt those customers to explore options for rolling over those funds when they log into their bank accounts online.
“And that is the real challenge: Figuring out how chatbots and their AI connect to the institution’s broader strategy,” says Michael Lee, chief sales officer with Agent IQ. “Chatbots are often deployed for efficiency, but their greatest value comes when those efficiency gains free staff to deepen relationships, uncover needs and ultimately drive growth.”
To learn more about chatbots, download the report, sponsored by Agent IQ, here.
