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We have interviewed Darko Popovic, Chief Operations Officer of Multitude, with 20 years of experience in customer operation units and customer experience management, and he is sharing his knowledge on some of the key changes in the customer service sector in this digital era. For those of your particularly interested in the topic of AI, then dig in!
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Customer service is no longer about serving our customers face-to-face. Read this to find out how neobanks are approaching this and how Multitude is building a modern customer service environment within the aggressively growing FinTech industry. The way customers communicate has dramatically changed. People now use more and more asynchronous communication, where they can communicate without the requirement that they be "present" at the same exact moment in time.
Multitude supports three independent business units, SweepBank, Ferratum, and CapitalBox and together they supported 400,000 clients.
What does a fully digital journey mean? Can you please elaborate?
It practically means, that everything is at the fingertips of a customer's “click”. The customer does not need to visit any branch or to call contact center. Starting with product offer, customer identification (KYC), onboarding, support, retention or termination, every step on the customer journey happens online.
Tell us about Multitude’s top-notch technologies and how they support its' customers.
Multitude prides itself on the fully digital journey it offers and the “click to serve” user friendly self-help tools along with well-trained customer service professionals. We have developed 15 smart AI virtual assistants, which are able to solve 74% of customer queries without the need to connect them with an agent. Our customer care and sales specialists can focus on more complex queries, sales and retention, while the easier – repetitive requests are handled by AI. We also provide help with video avatars based on “deep fake” technology and real human faces, who help our customers with tutorial videos on how to use our financial products and services. At Multitude, we do not believe in old fashion call centers, where customers need to wait on hold and then “speak to someone”. Our support is just a click away! Our strategy is to build a fully digital and effortless experience. Simplification, automation and digitalization are visible in the number of contacts needed to the customer service which has reduced by more than 70% (within two years). This means reinvesting our resources in quality, resulting in a major improvement in customer satisfaction with our service, from 89% to 94% within 3 years. We also utilize AI to translate our communication into multiple languages, without the need to always have native speakers.
A visualization of the translation system’s memory when translating a single sentence in multiple directions. Image Credits: Google
What is the benefit of the AI translation tool for the customers?
That our customer service specialists can now speak more than 15 languages. We are no longer dependent on language skills, we can communicate with our customers in their language, without the need to have native speaking assistants. Our translation system has a machine learning engine, so we can learn in time and continue to expand the database of the content and translations available. That means more consistent multilingual customer experience. Having people able to communicate with multiple languages helps operational efficiency but also quality, since we can focus on people skills and not language skills. Very soon, we will be able to speak to any customer in their mother tongue. Currently, this system works only for written – digital communication. However, this can change, and AI could completely transform the way we interact and communicate with people globally.
What channels are you using for communication with customers?
Multitude Bank is one of the first banks in Europe that started to communicate and serve customers from where they are – on social media. We support customers via WhatsApp, Messenger, Live Chat, Facebook, inApp chat, web tickets, email and for certain more complex service and sales activities also calls. We work hard to ensure that the communication is secure, GDPR compliant and mainly consistent across all service channels. Nowadays, many companies are moving towards omni channel communication strategy, where all these channels are synchronized and provide one consistent experience. We are trying to take one step forward and moving towards optimum channel management. This practically means that we choose the most optimal channel for the specific situation and mostly, that the customer can always choose the preferred option. Some people (mainly generation Z) barely watch their SMS inbox, on the other side, WhatsApp alert is always on their top radar. And vice versa.
Why should the bank communicate with customers via messaging channels?
The way customers communicate has dramatically changed. People now use more and more asynchronous communication, where they can communicate without the requirement that they be “present” at the same exact moment in time. Compared to the traditional phone, there is almost no waiting time. People can reply when it suits them. Digital conversational channels are also more suitable for self-help tools. People hate IVR (interactive voice recording) systems, “click to see/change” is much more convenient. 21st century customers want service that moves as fast as social media. As we move toward a truly “Digital World Economy” customer expectations are growing and becoming more demanding. To keep pace with these over-increasing expectations, financial institutions need to significantly change their service model. Traditional banks still have the negative paradigm, that they need to stay more formal and messaging channels can represent data risk. I remember a similar discussion 30 years back, when traditional companies considered opening call centers to be dangerous due to the potential information leak. The world is changing, and businesses need to adapt to new trends.
You have mentioned that Multitude is using Artificial Intelligence. Some people say that AI is dangerous for society since people risk losing their jobs.
Artificial Intelligence is already here, part of our daily life, even if people do not see it. When you google something, when Netflix or Spotify suggest your content which you may like, this is all based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). At Multitude, AI is helping us and our customers in many areas. From conducting credit risk assessments, providing more secure customer identification, 24x7 customer service but also with big data analyses. Nobody at our company was replaced by a robot, but people can focus on more creative and meaningful work. I also personally believe that AI will mean less repetitive and monotony work in favour of better work life balance. People will refocus on different types of work and most likely, we will work less. The same happened during the industrial revolution. People did not lose jobs but started to do more creative jobs which are not suitable for machines.
That means, that automation, digitalization, and AI bring also significant cost reduction.
Our main intention is to create value, not only to cut costs. The cost reduction is natural, secondary effect from effortless experience, where customer does not need to contact support for help or more information. Implementing AI should not be considered as a cost cutting short cut. Implementation of AI does not automatically mean better service. With wrong design or service logic, companies can completely ruin the quality or the respective service channel. AI is not a plug and play solution, it is like hiring a new person, where you need to train and develop everything from scratch. Lack of constant training will result in bad service experience.
Can AI provide the same personal experience as humans? What about emotional and empathy aspects?
AI has its limitations, and it will not be a full substitute for human contact. While it is very suitable for simple queries, for the more complex ones we need humans. People are emotional beings, and we build trust based on human contact. For this reason, we have implemented “sentiment-based routing”. Our chatbot can understand from the context that customer is angry or impatient – by running sentiment analyses. In this case, we would rather assign the request to a human specialist. The same applies for certain processes, where we want to handle the case by humans. We also provide “warm transfer” option, where customer can be anytime during the conversation connect to human specialist without the need to repeat it or to follow more steps. The critical question in the future will be how to balance AI and human based support.
When it comes to personal experience with AI, we have built predictive models which provide a more personalized approach. Thanks to real-time data analyses, we can predict what customers may be asking for. To take some simple use case, if customer is close to payment due date or is past due date, our chatbot will greet the customer with his/her name and will ask, if can help with the payment of the last invoice. Instead of providing a standard message, customers get a personalised service. They do not need to explain anything and just with a few clicks (really!) can complete the outstanding payment. Obviously, this is an easy case, our predictive service models are much more sophisticated.
So, does it mean that Customer Service's future is predictable?
The near future of customer service will be about simplicity, accessibility, predictability, and scalability. Digital channels are merely tools on how to get there. The main topic will be optimum channel management, in human words, how to balance robots and human specialists to provide convenient and efficient service.
“Learn from yesterday. The important thing is not to stop questioning” (AlbertEinstein)
Multitude group is known for its agile culture. Do you also use agile principles in operational units?
Agility is about adapting to change. Operations are a very dynamic business function where a situation can change in a second. Therefore, agile principles are very applicable to operational units. A great man once said, “Learn from yesterday. The important thing is not to stop questioning” (Albert Einstein). In our culture, we accept mistakes, and we learn from them. We lead our teams to be unafraid to say, “I need help,” or “I made a mistake.” Part of our agile transformation was also to reshape objective key results, respectively, operational targets. Instead of internal or speed-based metrics, we measure value for the customer. This approach also led us to refocus from short-term results to long-term impact-based objectives.
Employment, engagement and motivation – key elements in any service organisation
How did your team perceive the change? Do you see a positive impact on your projects?
Employment, engagement, and motivation are critical elements in any service organisation. We are responsible for our teams, and their motivation and engagement are essential to our mission. We also do not believe in the typical project management approach. Instead of waiting for “revolution,” we go with evolution, small steps which are easy to adapt if the situation changes. Multitude’s operations do not apply a strict hierarchy; we build networks where people can be creative and more independent from formal approvals. Instead of controlling, we focus on empowering people. We are building a high-trust and high-accountability culture. Our strength is that we can react quickly and respond to change in a complex cross-border environment. This way of working keeps our team motivated since they do not feel they are just a workforce but a valuable part of our Multitude team.
Where do you see Multitude’s customer service in the future?
Our mission is to democratise financial services through digitalisation. We want to make financial services fast, easy and green. Simplicity and effortless experience will be the key objectives. We will continue to design easy-to-use service models and tools where customers can get what they need conveniently and digitally securely. To achieve this, we will need a well-motivated team where the customers are the center of everything we do.