Conversational IVR: What is it and why is it awesome?

What is a banking bot?
Basically, imagine Siri but for banking.

We say “Hey Siri” and get our answers within a few seconds. For example, if I want to create an alarm to wake up at 8 AM tomorrow, I could open my phone, scroll around to find the timer app, then scroll around again to find how to set the time. This process is easy for people who set timers all the time, but for someone who doesn’t do this regularly, it can be time-consuming and frustrating. Luckily for us, Siri knows the inner workings of technology and sets the time for us. All we need to do is quickly ask her!

Similar to Siri, banking bots help mobile and website users navigate digital banking easily. I, for one, can never find my routing number. In the past, I’ve spent over 10 minutes scouring my financial institution’s key digits and eventually finding the right number on Google. Instead, I now use the banking bot and just ask the question: “What’s my routing number?” In less than a second, my routing number flashes before me. No digging around, no googling, just voila!

Banking bots can do much more than finding and displaying a user’s routing number, though. More on the functionalities of a banking bot in the next section.

Why should I use a Bot when I’m logged into Online Banking? Doesn’t my Online Banking Dashboard already do transactions?

Like I explained previously, banking bots answer FAQs for authenticated members so that they don’t have to consult the website or call into a contact center when they’re already logged into online banking. In addition to FAQs, banking bots can execute any digital banking workflow such as balance checks, payments, transfers, pin changes and travel notices because they are interfacing with authenticated users.

Yet there are a lot more capabilities that chatbots can do in an authenticated environment like online banking systems. Some banking bots even go the next step and help financial institutions with personalized and conversational marketing. For example, if a financial institution wants to grow their CDs (Certificates of Deposit), they can launch a personalized campaign targeting users segmented by persona (e.g. above 40 years old, have been members with you for 2+ years, and have at least $10K in savings). Then, when a member who checks all 3 of those boxes, interacts with the banking bot, the bot will naturally and gracefully surface information about CDs to them. This subtle and targeted type of conversational marketing is highly effective and increasingly adopted by more and more companies today.

In addition to personalized marketing, banking bots can also act as personal financial managers for users. Bots can surface insights about user’s spending behavior and provide tips on how they can better budget and manage wealth.

To summarize...

1. Answer FAQs
2. Execute transactions (i.e. check balances, make payments or transfers, put travel notices on cards, etc.)
3. Conduct personalized, targeted marketing campaigns
4. Act as a personal Financial Managers for users