Principa has a wealth of experience in building and deploying chatbots for the financial services industry. Our custom-built solution is flexible and fully customisable which allows your bot to assume your brand’s persona. We can also seamlessly integrate with existing systems. Find out more. 

Why would you choose to use a chatbot?

Here are a few of the main reasons why financial services businesses should implement a chatbot:

• Reduced operational costs
• Reduced inefficiencies
• Accessible services
• Smooths path to purchase
• Improved customer experience
• Speedy complaint resolution
• 24/7/365 availability
• Consistent messaging
• Your agents are less consumed by mundane tasks
• Your agents are more engaged in valuable interactions

How to choose the correct collections chatbot

Chatbots have recently grown in popularity and several companies have started to invest heavily in chatbot technology. However, from a consumer perspective, many people have had little interaction with chatbots and those that have had interactions usually note their experience as a negative one.

So, what is holding this technology back from delivering the service platform which these companies ultimately envisaged when designing the bot?

A Debt Collections Environment

The collections environment must be one of the most hostile working environments to find oneself in. Most notably because the debtor in question is either embarrassed or aggressive when receiving a phone call or notification – After all no one “enjoys” receiving a collections call.

As a consumer, if you know that you are in debt you are highly unlikely to answer an unknown number at work, especially when you don’t want other people to know about your personal difficulties. And most people are even less likely to answer an unknown call at home after hours, especially after a long day at work.

This is exactly why many debt collection companies have moved towards using self-service or digital collections capabilities as these technologies give you the opportunity to interact with debtors in a less personal manner, removing the embarrassment and some of the stress in the situation. It has also been found that debtors are more likely to respond to a digital solution than to a human being.

 “If we already know the importance of mobile messaging as a preferred channel, why is it taking so long for companies to adopt to mobile bot capability?”

A consumer-centric approach

Within any customer-centric environment, customer preference plays a pivotal role and within business it is considered best practice to engage with a customer on a platform they prefer and are most active on.

Take a moment to look around you, what is the preferred platform of choice? Yes, mobile phones.

Within a research report titled “Customer Preference for Messaging” (March 2017 – Market Strategies International), it was found that if companies delayed implementing a mobile message strategy “it would be a strategic blunder, because C2B mobile messaging has become a customer service imperative.”

That begs the question: If we already know the importance of mobile messaging as a preferred channel, why is it taking so long for companies to adopt mobile bot capability/technology?

And do consumers engage more readily with technology companies whose bot solution can meet these requirements?

Industry experience and knowledge is key

Industry experience and knowledge from a service provider can make or break your company’s digital collections strategy.

In terms of customer experience first impressions last, and therefore there is no time for a test-and-learn approach when it comes to rolling out bot solutions. No consumer wants to reengage with a chatbot if their first experience was a negative one!

“When we look at a collection bot, the conversation flow is vital in realising expectation management when debtors engage with bots.”

Collection bot conversation flow

When we look at a collection bot the conversation flow is vital in realising expectation management when debtors engage with bots.

In Principa’s recent investigations of “failed” bots we found that many of the bots we engaged with failed to inform the user at the onset regarding what they could assist with which ultimately results in the consumer being left to their own devices to ask the bot questions in order to determine the parameters and to be met with “I do not understand your question” replies.

TOP TIP: If a bot informs you of what they can assist you with from the start, the probabilities of that customer getting frustrated will be greatly reduced.

It is therefore vital to have the knowledge and experience of both bot language flows and the collections landscape, or to use a company with the relevant experience.

The need for a live Service Desk

Now even though an automated / AI bot can assist a customer through some of their journey, it does not mean that they will not need the assistance of a human operator at some stage. If a customer does need to talk to a “human” during their bot interaction, then you would want to be able to immediate hand the conversation over to a “human” operator.

In today’s busy life, there is no time for the dreaded “I will have a consultant get in touch with you”, if a customer engages with you now on this platform, he most likely wants to stay on this platform and just engage with a “human”.

TOP TIP: Make sure your chosen bot solution can integrate into service desks, or that it comes with its own service desk.

Solution Integration

Solution integration is key to a successful bot implementation. Make sure that your chosen bot platform can fully integrate with your collection system, or system of record, in order to provide a complete 360 degree view of historical customer interaction to agents and for compliance purposes.

Payment platform integration will also “complete” the bot experience where a debtor can not only view his balance or make an arrangement to pay, but is actually capable of making an immediate payment with his debit, credit card or by EFT through a secure payment portal.

Full data integration will also enable communication analytics, which will drive an enhanced communication strategy. There might be debtors who one would prefer to communicate with in person than via a collection’s bot (as per the example in the next point).

Analytical models to drive bot engagement

Within Collections and Recoveries, analytics plays a major strategic role. At Principa we deploy analytical models to inform us who is likely not to pay us (forward roll), the preferred installment amount to negotiate for, if we should offer the debtor a settlement discount, and what discount percentage we should offer etc.

With the availability of bot communication data, we can also build analytical models which can drive the bot engagement strategy:

• Who can actually use the bot? (eliminating debtors who use the bot to bypass responsibilities)
• When are these people most likely to use the bot?
• Timeslots where there is a high demand for service desk assistance?

The correct solution is key

As important as it is to have a digital collections capability, it is just as important, if not more important to implement the correct solution with the correct technology partner. Principa’s Atura is a powerful artificial intelligence chat solution that uses cloud technology to deliver the right answers to your customers via any device, albeit mobile, desktop or tablet. Chat to us to schedule a demo. 

Contact us further in order for us to understand how better we can meet your needs.