Almost half of the customers surveyed in the DACH region can imagine interacting with their bank via chat. This is shown by a new study by the IFZ on the topic of “Conversational Banking”. It is fascinating to see how the acceptance of conversion tools has increased in recent years and has already become a matter of course in many target groups, especially via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. What is interesting about such public media is that customers primarily prefer passive communication, i.e. being contacted by the bank.

The bank’s own channels outperform private messenger channels

When it comes to active communication with the bank, customers primarily want to get in touch with the bank via the bank’s own channels “Chat on the bank website”, “Chat in mobile banking” and “Chat in e-banking”. The “chat in e-banking” touchpoint is the most important in almost all target groups, with the exception of the age group between 30 and 39, where mobile banking clearly dominates.

Passive communication via the bank’s own channels is also much more accepted than via the well-known public, mostly “social” media. This is especially true for working men. In addition to the more “private” channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal or Telegram, the more “business-relevant” chat systems from Microsoft Teams or LinkedIn also have a lower level of acceptance.

Fear of security gaps is still there

Implementing chat in the bank’s own systems therefore proves to be the best of all alternatives. As the fear of security vulnerabilities continues to have a strong influence on the use of chat, it is important to proactively position and promote the chat channel as a “secure alternative”.

Document orders, address changes and account balance queries are among the most common chat use cases

It is very interesting to use the chat to order missing documents, for example. in the context of a tax return. Respondents can also imagine checking their account balance, reporting changes to addresses, powers of attorney or limits or making general inquiries about e- or mobile banking via chat. On the other hand, canceling a product or customer relationship via chat is not considered appropriate.

Simple applications can be handled by a chatbot in the future

The acceptance of chatbots in banking is similar – but with important differences. The chat partner here is a robot, a bot. The younger customers are, the more likely they are to have already had experience with chatbots and trust them with regard to the simplest application: correct and fast account balance queries. However, handling money transfers and ordering missing documents or cards are also valid use cases for a chatbot. Respondents can also imagine making general inquiries about e- or mobile banking. It is interesting to note that 41% of customers can imagine terminating their banking relationship in the knowledge that the person they are talking to is a machine.

Chats are suitable for advising on basic products

The high level of approval for banking advice for basic products such as account solutions or credit cards is particularly exciting for banks. Around 60% of all respondents who can generally imagine dialog with the bank via chat can also imagine such advice.

However, this acceptance drops to 42% for investment products and even 35% for credit products when considering advice via chat. The younger the target group and the simpler the products for which advice is required, the greater the acceptance. The acceptance of a contract via chat is (naturally) somewhat lower than the acceptance of a consultation. The probability of concluding a contract for basic products drops to 55%, for investment products to 42% and for mortgage products to 31% via chat is virtually non-existent.

Voicebots are used when driving

With regard to the use of voice chat, it should be noted that this technology is still in the early stages of development. Habituation effects play a major role in use here. It is clear that the use case “when driving” will be a decisive factor for the use of such technologies. For banking, this means making access to the account and above all the possibility of transferring money available via this channel. The German savings banks, for example, are already one step ahead here. This also explains the significantly higher acceptance of voice technology, for example. via Amazon Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant in Germany compared to, for example Switzerland.

In view of this conclusion, the following recommendations for retail banks can be derived:

• Anyone who does not yet offer their customers the chat channel for communication with the bank should do so as soon as possible. Although not all customers currently want to use the chat channel to communicate with their bank, this makes it all the easier for banks to gradually introduce the new channel and, in doing so, to get their own employees used to the new media and adapt processes accordingly in order to do justice to the new medium and its peculiarities.
• Banks should initially only offer chat options via the bank’s own channels such as e-banking, mobile banking or the bank website, rather than via non-bank channels such as WhatsApp etc. The advantage of this is that data protection issues can be clarified more easily and no customer data leaves the bank’s ecosystem.
• A gradual introduction of individual tasks that customers can complete via chat seems sensible and recommendable. Existing customers primarily prefer simple and repetitive requests and processes via chat. This includes ordering documents and cards, checking account balances, reporting changes or creating transfer orders.
• Banks should therefore also consider processing simple chat requests using an automated chatbot. Customers appreciate the round-the-clock availability of the chats and the digital assistants make this possible. As the chat applications preferred by customers are very frequently recurring requests anyway, these can also be handled easily via chat.
• Ultimately, it seems to be important to make it possible to provide advice and conclude direct contracts for simple products such as account and card solutions via conversational banking.
• As far as the voice channel is concerned, the banks still have some time before it is introduced. Text chat is currently still preferred for most inquiries. It is clear that the use case “when driving” will be a decisive factor for the use of such technologies.

At the end

Chats and chatbots in particular can be used not only to advise customers or deal with general customer inquiries, but can also be used to impart knowledge. The keyword here is conversational microlearning. The first companies are already starting to train their employees with the help of short chat training sessions.
Furthermore, there are already countless studies on how these chatbots must be designed for microlearning and why knowledge transfer with chatbots seems to be very successful.

If you have never heard of conversational microlearning and would like to try it out, or if you have not managed to read the entire study and memorize all the content, this chatbot (please scan the QR code) is certainly a great introduction to the topic of conversational microlearning and conversational banking.

Have fun chatting.

Chatbot with study results

P.S.:

The entire study can be downloaded here.