Finding opportunities that align with the bank’s strategy to be a personal bank in a digital age.
Company ABN AMRO | 2020 Services product development, user research, creative facilitation, personalisation
In 2020 ABN AMRO updated their main strategy; Being a personal bank, in a digital age. With this focus, we wanted to explore opportunities and get clarity on customer value, organisational challenges and changes in way of working. We found 3 opportunity areas; tasks, customer- and contextual information. To make an impact we learned it wasn’t the issue to create ideas, but rather have an organisation to facilitate personalisation capabilities.
Chatbot maturity levels
Approach
Explore, choose ideas based on impact and try to launch them as small increments
Workshop
Choosing relevant cases with a broad perspective by facilitating a workshop with business partners like e-commerce, contact centre and development.
Design and user test
Explore various designs, choose and iterate. User testing various ideas to understand the customer value better.
Launch and evaluate
Bring cases to production and evaluate how customers interact with them and learn how to approach new cases from an organisational perspective.
Results
Identifying 3 opportunity areas
1. Tasks
The most significant part of online banking consists of performing tasks. In this area, the chatbot could help customers directly complete tasks in the chat window. We explored what this would mean for both short to longer processes.
2. Customer profile
A section of the integrations focuses on the individual information of the customer. This could be their personal details, like contact information or their financial products.
3. Context
A third part considers the situation or the context of the customer. This would include the time of the day, the device they are using or the specific location on one of our digital channels
Tasks
1. Completing small tasks directly in the chatbot
The most significant part of online banking consists of performing tasks. In this area, the chatbot could help customers directly complete tasks in the chat window. We explored what this would mean for both short to longer processes. We learned that to adopt this kind of interaction, all the service integration should speed or simplify the actions for the customers.
Changing an address
When evaluating actions to integrate with the chat we looked at short processes. What we learned was to not only look at the length but also the complexity of the process. Changing an address has a lot of edge cases that have to be covered increasing the complexity of the implementation.
Outcome; 70% of customers prefer to change their address directly in the chat.
Downloading the financial overview
A yearly returning request is that customers would like to download their financial overview. Although already 90% of the customers are satisfied with just a textual answer, we looked at a way to exceed their expectations.
Making an appointment online
In some cases a high level authentication is required and customers have to make an appointment at a branch. Chatting with the bot is very natural way to intercept these customers. During user interviews we discovered this also feels logical for customers as the chatbot also guides them with other ways of human contact.
Webforms
To explore some boundaries we looked into the process of requesting a product. In the example, one can see the questions that are answered to request a savings account for a minor. We learned that customers feel less in control and prefer to use a traditional form. Customers did appreciate using a chat for low-threshold questions regarding the questions in the form.
Customer profile
2. Making the chatbot feel personal
With this direction, there is the highest chance that the chatbot feels personal as we would use individual data of the customers. One can think of their personal salutation, displaying their address or phone number or acknowledging the various products they have at the bank.
Greeting customers by name
The most direct and friendly way to make the chatbot personal is by greeting the customers by their name. While doing so we acknowledge the customer is identified.
Financial products and household
While providing instructions to the customer it’s helpful to understand which products the customer has at the bank. By knowing this we can skip these questions and thereby shorten the dialogues, also we can filter out information that is irrelevant. Additionally, it prevents some confusion, as customers expect the chatbot to be part of the online channels and don’t see it as a separate system.
Context
3. Considering the situation of the customer
A great thing about chatbots is that they are omnichannel and can be started anytime and anywhere. We use the context of the customers in various ways. The device of the customer is used to tailor answers either for the app or web. Or when customers are already logged in we skip the request to identify themselves when handing them over to agents.
Contextual introductions
Customers mostly stumble on questions while managing their finances, so it’s only logical they are already focused on a certain topic. With the chatbot, we wanted to use this information to understand or predict what customers were going to ask. The more specific the topic, the easier this becomes. Customers also love this as it reduces their effort to look for an answer.
Identification
Only when customers or not logged in, the chatbot asks them to identify themselves. Identification is a sensitive topic as it’s moment targeted by fraudsters. To make sure customers trust these steps, they are asked to log in exactly as they are used to.
As a result, there is a 20% increase in total identified customers. Which increases the quality of the help that can be provided by agents.
Outcome
Creating clarity for the leadership team to set priorities by providing them with an overview of valuable solutions
Various releases enabled customers to be directly helped by the chatbot or shortened their journey. Also, we create clarity for the leadership team to set priorities by providing them with an overview of valuable solutions.
Would like to know more?
For ABN AMRO
Year 2020
Objective Find opportunities that align with the bank’s strategy to be a personal bank in a digital age.
Role Product development, user research, creative facilitation
Next cases
Always progressing towards a solution with help of a conversational AI companion
Product development
Creating a healthy financial future
Concept development