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AI-Driven Customer Experience What It Means for Financial Services 2 AI-Driven Customer Experience What it means for financial services 2 Contents Foreword 4 1 Harnessing the AI opportunity 4 2 Mitigating the risks 7 3 Future applications of AI 9 About Mando Mando is a digital experience agency that exists Conclusion 10 to simplify people’s lives. We create solutions for large financial services, manufacturing, utilities & telecoms organisations who need to offer their customers simple and efficient digital experiences. Our customers include TSB, Together Money, United Utilities, Electricity North West, Norican Group, TalkTalk Business and Bentley Motors. www.mando.agency 0845 365 4040 [email protected] Acknowledgements Mando and Digital Doughnut would like to thank the following people for contributing to this report: About Digital Doughnut • Robert Belgrave, CEO, Wirehive Digital Doughnut connects the global marketing • Dan Bolland, director, KPMG community both on and offline. Members of the • Saf Iqbal, senior digital project manager and strategist, HSBC community gain access to skills and resources, • Chris Michael, head of technology, Open Banking the latest thinking on key marketing topics, crucial • Stefan Pata, head of total customer experience, RCI Financial Services insights and best practice learnings that enable • Kathleen Scully, business development manager, Mastercard them to make better business decisions. Digital • Jostein Svendsen, CIO, Jaja Finance Doughnut both leverages and provides value to the community by tapping into the collective intelligence of the network to create high-value The findings in this report can be used for non-commercial purposes as long content that’s based on actual market conditions as Digital Doughnut and Mando are attributed as the source under the creative and informed by practitioners’ experience. commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International licence. WWW.DIGITALDOUGHNUT.COM AI-DRIVEN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE In partnership with Mando TEL: +44 (0)207 193 4600 DECEMBER 2017 WWW.MANDO.AGENCY © DIGITAL DOUGHNUT 2017 TEL: 0845 365 4040 3 Foreword by Mando Jonathan Seal Strategy Director Mando Brands For every dollar Customer experience is the new battleground for financial services businesses. And it’s a ground that investing or pound invested in digital disruptors — unhindered by legacy technology in customer improving the customer — are excelling within. Price, trust and brand alone are no longer considered the ultimate differentiators, experience have experience, businesses as customer expectations continue to rise, and be seen a 19% generated an average driven by CX leaders such as Google, Amazon and Facebook; 31% of consumers would now consider increase in of three dollars (or purchasing banking services from these tech giants. As revenue.1 pounds) in return.1 customers demand more from their financial services 87% of providers, businesses are increasingly turning to consumers think artificial intelligence (AI) as a means to keep pace. brands need to work To delve into the opportunities and risks that go with harder to create a bringing AI into your customer experience strategy, we held a roundtable dinner with 30 experts from leading seamless experience retail banks, payment providers and other financial for customers.2 Marketers services organisations. We discussed the potential and digital for AI to drive up customer engagement through proactive and relational support based on customer professionals regard activity and AI-driven site search; the opportunities it customer experience unlocks for personalisation and leveraging big data to By 2020, improve customer service; deep learning on customer as the most exciting behaviours to drive product and service innovation; and the demand for an opportunity for the how it can be used within contact centres and provide omnichannel customer year ahead.3 real-time insights. experience will be The debate also looked into the thorny issues related amplified by the need to AI; the fast-approaching General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the risks around storing for nearly perfect By 2020, more customer data; the black box problem of machine execution.4 decision-making; the gap between the majority of than 85% of a organisations and those that are differentiating; and the brand/customer risks related to trust and privacy. relationship will be Having heard a wide range of perspectives and some managed without interesting predictions around the extent to which 5 AI could impact financial services and the type of a human. opportunities it might unlock, it’s clear that while some had already started on that journey, others had not yet brought their ambitions for AI to the forefront of their customer experience strategy. Sources: 1 Sitecore / Avanade; 2 Zendesk / Loudhouse; 3 Econsultancy; 4 PwC; 5 Gartner WWW.DIGITALDOUGHNUT.COM AI-DRIVEN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE In partnership with Mando TEL: +44 (0)207 193 4600 DECEMBER 2017 WWW.MANDO.AGENCY © DIGITAL DOUGHNUT 2017 TEL: 0845 365 4040 4 Harnessing the AI opportunity 1 Many financial institutions are already reaping the benefits of AI. Robo-advisors help asset managers find the best portfolio mix for their clients, while machine learning can help us identify anomalies, making it easier to prevent fraud. As the financial services space becomes more competitive, how can AI capabilities be used to create better customer experiences? The rise of AI in financial services through flexible, personalised services driven by More deep insights at scale. sophisticated Although the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has bots are also existed for more than 60 years, only recently have we had In this white paper, we’ll look at the the computing power and data to take advantage of it opportunities AI holds for financial institutions, on the horizon, and its practical applications that can benefit businesses. consider the risks involved in using what is – simplifying employees’ despite having existed in some form since the work and helping Machine learning – the mechanism by which computers 1950s – still a nascent technology, and look learn from data to adapt their behaviours to make ahead to what AI holds for the future of finance. people make better predictions – is already a presence in our everyday In an effort to rebuild the customer experience decisions. lives. Anyone who has been surprised by the uncannily from the ground up, it makes sense to start with accurate recommendations made by Amazon or Netflix the front line – where the customer first interacts has experienced machine learning in action. with your company. Machine learning is also playing an increasingly How can I help? significant role in the way we interact with financial organisations and relate to money itself. In a financial Chatbots - automated online services that customers context, it has long been used in high frequency trading, can engage with through messaging apps, chat credit assessment, and to prevent fraud. windows or with their voice - have been deployed by many businesses to handle routine customer service Letting AI take care of more routine or computational queries, leaving their human counterparts more time tasks makes businesses more efficient, and gives to resolve more complex issues. Chatbots can be humans more time to focus on tackling complex issues. ‘trained’ with the help of data from previous But how can AI help financial institutions face their customer interactions, and are often ready to greatest challenges? get to work in a matter of weeks. Since the financial crisis, re-establishing consumer Research by Accenture has found examples trust has been at the top of the agenda in finance. where chatbots can resolve more than 80% Rapid technological advances in other sectors have of chat sessions, and the cost savings of using virtual also raised customer expectations – we increasingly assistants to answer basic questions are estimated demand the seamless experiences we get from pureplay by the National Australia Bank to be $16 million per digital companies such as Uber, Amazon, Facebook annum for its organisation alone. and Google. What is the solution to taking on these challenges? Improving the customer experience. Mando predicts that more sophisticated bots – those that can break down, categorise and evaluate data to As the importance of bricks and mortar declines, the support customers or internal teams – are also on playing field is far less dependent on current brand the horizon, simplifying employees’ work and reputation and far more dependent on delivering CX helping people make better decisions. WWW.DIGITALDOUGHNUT.COM AI-DRIVEN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE In partnership with Mando TEL: +44 (0)207 193 4600 DECEMBER 2017 WWW.MANDO.AGENCY © DIGITAL DOUGHNUT 2017 TEL: 0845 365 4040 5 Harnessing the AI opportunity CHAPTER 1 Simplifying personalisation According to separate research by Econsultancy, customer But AI can go further than the front-line. As experience represents the well as providing a seamless experience The ability single best opportunity when customers come to you, how about to personalise financial services approaching them with something they customer experience companies have to deliver might find useful? With the predictive will serve as the best on their priorities. Indeed, insights offered by AI’s algorithms, it’s customers no longer possible to determine and offer what possible differentiator just want access to their customers need next, before they even know in an increasingly information. They want it themselves. competitive
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