Design a chat bot for the banking Industry.

Let me first clarify a few queries:

Has there been any market research or user research done that we are thinking of design a chat specifically for banking industry? à Nothing very particular

Who are going to be its users? Is it for internal employees such as new joiners can ask the bot for some basic questions & policies or is it for external customer? à external customers

Is there any high-level business objective I should be aware of before I proceed? à You can assume

The working of the chatbot is – people will ask banking industry services related questions and it should be able to answer it. Is that okay? à Yes

Also, I am assuming that such chatbots will be used by banks in the banking industry for the external customers.

I will structure my answer by first discussing about the high-level goal of such a product, then look at the user segments and their pain points. Next prioritize a few of them based on severity, frequency by keeping in mind the user goal. Brainstorm a few solutions and prioritize them based on ease of implementation, cost and business/user goal satisfaction.

Banks have been in operation for a long time and have been providing a myriad of services to the customers through their websites in this digital era. Banks have hit a level of saturation in the Tier-1 cities. At the same time internet penetration has touched new levels in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Most of the users have access to smartphones which have smaller screen sizes than laptops/tablets for websites to provide sufficient information. So, for banks the usage of chatbot is to provide better user engagement and satisfaction to their users across tiers as well as to acquire new customers especially in the tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

User segments:

1. Working professional who want to get things done quickly at the comfort of their homes
2. Senior citizens who are slightly averse to technology, find it difficult to go to banks for every transaction/activity and also find it difficult to get all the required services on the banking website (though available)
3. Less educated or uneducated folks from the low-income families who are not very comfortable with technology or not very comfortable with interacting with digital websites, find it daunting to meet the white-collared banking employees and don’t have the time to visit the bank for evert transaction/activity

Lets now look at the pain points of the latter 2 segments as there seems to be a huge gap in the engagement/satisfaction levels of these users and the current services being provided by the banks in the industry.

1. Want specific answers to their problems/queries instantly without having to visit bank or call up someone and wait over the line or struggle to search for the answer on the website. – P0
2. Would prefer to get responses in the language they are comfortable in. – P1
3. Want to perform any action such as check balance, transfer money without having to visit bank or call up someone and wait over the line or struggle to understand the process and then after multiple clicks on the website see the process failed. – P2

I have prioritized them based on severity and frequency as customers will have frequent queries but will perform specific actions only once a month or so. Similarly, without solving the issue of providing specific answers and giving just general answers and brining in multi-lingual support will not be much value.

Now, let’s design the chatbot:

1. Welcome the user in English (voice) and show the frequently asked services as options in the chat window (don’t read out the options) and ask for the language that they are comfortable with (options are provided so that the user has some idea what can be asked)
2. If the user directly starts asking/typing their query in non-English language, the bot should be able to pickup the language and switch.
3. The answer to the query should be personalized and should be explained in a layman’s language. The answer should be shown in the chat window and read out loud. For example: if a person has logged in and the bot is aware that he/she is a salaried person and let’s say the query is about some credit card benefits, only the benefits applicable to a salaried person should be in the response
4. The user should have the option to switch off the voice of the bot whenever he/she wants to by asking it do so or by clicking on a specific icon.
5. Any of the services such as checking balance, adding payee, transferring funds, paying credit card bills should all be possible just through chat (speech + text) without having the user to switch to any other page.
6. When asked for the above processes, the entire process can be first explained in simple language and then the user can be guided to perform the actions step by step (if the user prefers to use the guided option)

Depending on the prioritization of earlier pain points, solutions 1 to 4 should be prioritized, followed by 5 and 6. For step 3, the customer enquiries/issues should be properly analyzed to understand the questions and the level of personalization required.

Specific responses to general and frequently asked queries, multilingual and voice support can be the major features of the chat bot to achieve the business goal of better engagement and satisfaction and the user goals of getting issues resolved without having to visit bank, without having to wait for long on customer call lines and without wasting time in searching the websites which the users are not very comfortable doing.