Automated agent handoff for banking customer support

Shifting from contact centers to customer care platforms and implementing the intelligent routing of customer requests between digital and assisted channels can yield a profitability boost of up to 15% for retail banks. - BCG

AI-powered digital assistants have transformed the customer service landscape in the Banking & financial sector, helping cut down overall customer support costs including agent costs, call center charges, etc., with service automation and online interactions. However, digitization comes with few concerns of its own.

How to resolve complex issues which need human intervention? How can virtual assistants and human agents work together seamlessly without breaking the customer journey?

Human Hand-off is a feature in which the conversation from the bot is transferred to the live agent enabling the customer to interact directly with an agent to resolve complex issues. In order to make handoff occur proactively without disrupting the customer experience, it is important that the digital assistants know when to hand over a conversation to an agent.

BankBuddy’s Agent Handoff module leverages a combination of AI, advanced analytics, and intelligent chat routing to automate bot-to-agent handoff. The AI chatbots & virtual assistants are trained to automatically trigger human hand-off in the following scenarios and enable AI + human service across channels & languages.

Request-based

When the customer asks to be directly connected with a live agent, the conversation is seamlessly transferred to an agent, who is equipped with the context to ensure quick issue resolution, thereby increasing FCR.

Sentiment-based

Using AI-based sentiment analysis, the virtual assistant can analyze user sentiments and modify responses accordingly. If a customer is getting angry or frustrated, the machine learning & NLP models easily recognize the negative intents and offer the customer an option to connect with a live agent. This ensures the customer’s concern is proactively addressed, resulting in optimum satisfaction levels while preventing potential churn.

Priority-based

BankBuddy’s composite AI platform uses a multi-dimensional approach to analyze past customer interactions and dynamic attributes to proactively identify at-risk or priority customers - for example, customers with blocked cards, inactive accounts, high-value customers, etc. Agent handoff is proactively triggered for these priority customers to ensure quick resolution and avoid negative customer experiences.

Fall-back option

In case of unidentified intents or complex queries that require human intervention, the conversation is proactively transferred to an agent, ensuring the customer journey is complete.

Real-time chat routing

To achieve maximum efficiency in customer service, the bot-to-agent hand-off is incorporated with chat routing options. Chat routing can be customized based on the business requirement and use case.

Round-robin routing: The hand-off requests from the digital assistants are distributed across a group of live agents. The request is forwarded to each agent in turn until an available agent accepts it.

Language-based routing: Agents are assigned based on the language preference of the customer. This eliminates language barriers as a reason for poor call resolution or low customer satisfaction.

Skill-based routing: Bot to the agent conversations are assigned based on an agent's skill set and domain knowledge – for example, agents who are experts with home loans, credit cards, or Fixed deposits. This helps in quick issue resolution and increased FCR rates while improving overall service efficiency.

Agent assist console

The BankBuddy’s agent-assist module helps hand over the conversation to live agents, seamlessly and contextually, so there is no need for the customers to repeat their issue when an agent is brought in to help, thereby reducing the time taken for resolution.

Canned responses: The agent is also provided with templatized responses for common issues, helping reduce response times and ensure quick issue resolution.

Action recommendations: The agent is assisted with actionable recommendations using AI to help him resolve the issue based on the customer persona and behavior. This also includes personalized upsell cross-sell recommendations and offers, helping boost revenue generation.

Handoff analytics: The agent assist console comes with inbuilt dashboards, real-time analytics, live stats & reports to help supervisors and agents monitor their KPIs & customer service metrics.

Reduce your cost to serve up to 60% and increase FCR rates with automated AI + Human service. Connect with us for a personalized demo!

Read more about how digital liveness detection is done during eKYC process https://bankbuddy.ai/eKYC-for-banking-customers