The fintech revolution is here – and the banking industry is on the cusp of a major transformation.
By 2020, customers will manage 85 per cent of their business relationships without interacting with a human, predicts Danny Tomsett, CEO of Artificial Intelligence company FaceMe.
"Digital Employees represent the future of banking," he says. "The fintech revolution is here, and the way in which clients manage, spend, invest, share and borrow money has well and truly gone digital.”
But if everyone goes digital – and if every conversation we have is digital – how do we differentiate or influence the customer experience?
This will be the big dilemma, says Mr Tomsett.
“A company's ability to make digital conversations more human will differentiate companies in the future.
"Experience is everything, and to get it right, we'll need to capture the best human qualities and integrate these with digital.
“Having all the bells and whistles on a digital platform doesn't matter as much to today's consumer as the ability to deliver a friendly service, unique experience, and personalisation – in a manner that is convenient, knowledgeable and efficient.”
Service with a smile
Businesses need to ask themselves: can our platforms be friendly?
Can our platforms provide a unique, personalised service? Can our platform smile?
"Today's customers expect to be able to use their voices in the comfort of their homes to request assistance, Mr Tomsett says. “The future could see this extended to stores where digital employees will make the need to queue obsolete. They will use biometrics to identify customers and a memory of each past interaction to personalise future ones."
Digital employees are the perfect employees, he says.
“They offer an empathetic, human-like interface which provides answers, handles requests, supplies information or simply connects clients to a key person across any and all channels, day or night.”
His company FaceMe, he says, can enable any organisation with a digital team to make this experience a reality.
Special presentation
At IBM's Think Australia and Think New Zealand this year, FaceMe and ASB Bank will make a special presentation explaining why digital employees could change banking as we know it today.
The theme for this year’s events is Where Technology Meets Humanity.
At Think, Mr Tomsett will discuss FaceMe's belief that customer experience will be the currency of the future.
Earlier this month in the US, one of FaceMe's AI-powered Digital Employees led a customer through an interactive loan application process.
The Digital Employee demonstrated recognition and knowing the customer. The employee displayed value and individualisation and complete natural language understanding.
Meet Josie, your new digital assistant
It was as “natural” as talking to a bank manager – except this one is available 24/7 across any channel.
At the NZ tech event, ASB's Leigh Angus, Head of Innovation and Commercialisation at ASB, and Mr Tomsett will tell visitors about the "Josie experiment."
Josie is ASB's digital assistant designed to help their teams support small-to-medium (SME) NZ business owners.
On stage, the two presenters will have a "conversation" with Josie, including asking her about her role at ASB.
Josie was the first human-like interface powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to be used in Australasian banking and was created through a partnership between ASB and FaceMe.
She was designed to assist SME business owners when setting up a business.
To date, FaceMe has brought this experience to life over mobile, browser, phone and kiosk. It has also had pilot customers across banking, Government and telecommunications.
