How to Stay Relevant in the Age of Conversational Banking

And I'm happy to take over this stage at a, you know, cuz you concluded the last panel at an optimistic note. So hope to continue that note. So I'm Elif based in burden. And I'll talk to you today about the conversational banking strategies, but of course, before talking about like how to drive conversational banking and how to make it relevant for you, it makes sense to talk about what is conversational banking, because this is a term that we started hearing a lot, especially in the last years, but it doesn't mean anything to some, to some and also to some it's just another buzzword.

So hopefully we can clarify that and clarify, why is it important today? Can we switch this slide please? Thank you. So conversational banking is actually is a way of creating human life interactions and it is a new comfort zone between onsite and self-service banking. And I think this game traction, especially in the, in the post pandemic era where we realize that, okay, digital is good, having no banks are great, you know, just handling all our transactions digitally is great, but there's more to that because we've seen that the customers started craving human interactions.

They started craving more personalization. They started feeling the need of, you know, contacting another human being, but in a more standard and structured way. And I can say that conversational banking is definitely filling this gap. And in short, actually conversational banking is commanding banking transactions via voice video takes messages and also in the more mainstream way chat bots, but it's way more than just chat bots. And it is basically a way of like creating person and, but in not in person conversations that are going natural.

So not just sending some standardized messages to your clients via different like different channels, but, but more to that. So craving a personal experience where your customer feels like there's someone that is authorized and that is qualified, that is taking care of them. And it is important that conversational banking conversations are interactive. They're continuous and of course they're automated, but also that they're smart.

So it doesn't make sense that the, the, the customer gets these messages that do not make sense to them or, you know, it's just so standard that it's just it's, it doesn't feel natural. So it has to be natural. And the more channels that you use for this, the better it will be, because then it will feel like the conversation is ongoing all the time. Next slide please. So why do we need it obviously?

I mean, as I mentioned after the pandemic, we realize that so just digitalization 1.0, isn't enough just, you know, having everything digital, but we also have to top it up with personal experiences and personalized experiences. But more than that, it helps enterprises and banks in, in many different ways. So of course it is there to improve customer experience and retention, but it does it in a, in a way that it's standardized service quality and, and work streams.

So if you are just using customer service agents that are distributed across the country or across countries, it is really hard to supervise these conversations and it can go wrong in multiple ways. Although there will always be a human that is, that is in control of this conversation. You would never know what went wrong, whether whether your customer supports a support agent, wasn't motivated enough wasn't knowledge enough, whether whether there was no chemistry, that could be multiple reasons. And it's really hard to make this conversation very standard and professional.

However, with conversational banking on of course like these, these technologies and also, and also these strategies, you can, you can create this standardized and high quality service and you can also easily measure the customer satisfaction and the performance of your bank. In addition to that, of course, using all these mechanism in place helps you to cut your costs and helps you to do cross selling, which is a bit harder. And you can, you can, you can actually measure this by thinking about the last, last airline conversation that you had on the phone.

So when you had to click click on eight and then you had to click on four and then click back to three, again, just to talk to three or four different customer agents to handle one single transaction. And at the end, the customer is so drained that they don't want to deal with anything else anymore.

Or the, the agents are simply not qualified enough or knowledge enough to handle this, this cross selling opportunities themselves. However, with, with conversational banking channels, you can easily like divert the conversation like after the transaction is handled to something else to, to fulfill or address the, the, the future needs of the customer. And also with conversational banking, since it will, or it is supposed to feel natural and continue. So you can have this conversation with your customer.

So as if, as if the customer customer feels like you are a friend and that you have a WhatsApp conversation that you never close, and you don't have to say hi or bye, but you are there and they feel confident that they can come back to you and, and ask you questions and you will solve their problems. Basically. Can we change the slide please?

Of course, it sounds all great in a perfect world, but comes with challenges too, especially in an environment like Europe, where you have like very high data privacy and banking, secrecy compliance requirements, but it is actually not rocket science and it is easier to, is it easy to navigate these compliance elements with, with a decent strategy?

So of course, especially if you're using external platforms to, to navigate conversational banking, say, say WhatsApp, say Facebook messenger, this will be harder to comply, but the, the first thing, the first thing that you have to handle more than the legalese, the terms and conditions is the education of your customer.

So you have to educate your customer about which channels are right and, and what they should expect, because the moment that you announce that you are out there with, with, I don't know, a channel like using WhatsApp or, or some other social social media channel, like scammers will be out there to try to trick your customers to, and to convince them that they are you. And therefore you have to educate your customers on what to expect and how to handle these, these conversations and what information to give and what not to give.

Other than that, of course you will, you'll be using like specific disclaimers, specific terms and conditions, but it's also suggested to like, or recommended to use like channel specific unique identifiers so that your customers wouldn't feel compelled to use, to share their iPads or their personal, or, or banking information to identify themselves or authenticate something.

In addition to that, of course, it is recommended to switch to a secured banking environment as quickly as possible, because the more, the longer the, the, you have this conversation on an external channel, the, the riskier it gets for you. And last but not least, of course, AI built in interactions comes with their setbacks. And therefore you should always supervise these processes with, with, with some humans, like with human workers, basically create a hybrid mechanism so that you know, that the process is going according to the plan, can we change the slide piece?

So we talked about what is conversational banking. We talked about how to navigate compliance. So if we have these in place, the, the next question for the bank is to, is to create the specific, specific strategy. And of course, this comes with the question, what is right for us. And most banks here actually does a mistake of copying their competitors or looking around and doing exactly the same for their customers. And this is actually quite, quite wrong because the, the data that you need is actually in you.

So you can just looking, just looking into the data that you have and ask your customers what their, what their preferred channels. And, and based on that, you know, create this, create this customized strategy and make sure that the, the, the needs of your customers are fulfilled. So it doesn't make sense to create a social media conversation. If you are, for instance, operating in Germany where social media channel usages are, are low, or the trust in these channels are lower. And you have to basically like ask your customers and look into the data, but also look into what they need.

So what are the frequently asked questions from their side? What are the most requested transactions from their side? And based on that, you know, build, build the next steps and the, the faster you start, the better it would be because it is already out there. And a lot of these, a lot of other companies are making use of it are utilizing conversational banking.

So the more you wait or the more you postpone these projects, the, the harder it will get, it will be to start because then, like the more you wait, the, the higher quality of services you would need to start serving, and therefore it is recommended to start as quickly as possible. And you should always aim an informative, a tailor made, and a holistic overview for, for your customers and go beyond what they expect or what is out there in the market. Can we change a slide please?

This and speaking of a holistic overview, actually the use cases of conversational banking are endless, and we are not just think like we shouldn't limit ourselves to the, the use cases of traditional banking transactions here, because with conversational banking and using so many different channels, you can actually create this, this perfect holistic banking experience for your customers.

So they can go beyond just reporting for their loss and stolen cards, balance checks, like finding ATMs or account opening and loan requests, but they can actually request more and you can use this channel to utilize lifestyle banking. So you can actually give advice on, on like the lifestyle of your customers. So you can give half advice. If they're traveling, you can just direct them to the nearest consulate. You can give them traveling tips.

And I assure you, these will, although they don't, you know, belong to the, to the list of activities that are listed in, in banking license, these belong to the, these activities actually belong to the definition of future banking of holistic lifestyle banking. A lot of banks in Asia and even in Europe are, are like currently working on these products that, that help their customers to, to manage their life in a whole. So not their, not just their financial transactions, not just their banking transactions, but more than that.

So you can use conversational banking to actually be a part of your customer, because you know, your customer more than anyone else, you can use their data. And based, based on that, build these personal holistic services that addresses like the needs of your customer from a 360 degree point of view, can we change the slide please? And as I said, we have to start quickly because there will be more use cases. There will be more competitors. And the earlier you start, the better your competitive edge is because some of the early adopters are already already making their mark.

And when talking about early adopters, I have to talk about a small bank from LAR in Germany. So it, it is actually a Fox bank from bar, like a city of 40,000 people where you wouldn't actually expect like one of the first conversational banking, examples.

However, Forbank LA was one of the first to implement conversational banking strategies in Germany. Apparently they talked to their customers, they just looked into the data and decided that like the live chat would, would work great for their customers. And they just launched a pilot really quickly.

And according to what their executives say, even they weren't like expecting so much like positive feedback from their customers, but now even their rather senior customers are using these conversational banking features to, to drive their, you know, mainstream transactions, to, to report, to check their balances and to actually do a lot of their, to do, to handle a lot of their banking transactions. And there will be more to that.

But seeing that one of these smaller banks or bank that is serving like a smaller population is, is taking the leap and, and being a great example in creating a great use case. It shows that actually as an enterprise, as a bank or as a FinTech, you don't need a lot of resources or a huge tech bank or a huge tech team to, to tackle this question or to create like great examples. The great use case just lies within what your customers need.

And as long as you just give it to them, it doesn't matter if, if it's very developed, if it's using the highest technology or, or if it's just like a simple interface that just serves to the needs of your customers, as long as you address the needs of your customer, therefore, I would say, just start now and, and become a part of it. Thank you.