Since about 2014 the messengers reach has been tangibly growing. With 4 billion Internet users, 2,5 billion communicate in social media, 3,6 billion use messengers, and this number is rapidly growing.
Evidently, this figure is limited to the number of the Internet users, that’s why messengers will face market glut pretty soon. However, people prefer to have several messengers for message exchange.
According to the statistics of the observer Danil Pominov from the matter of Bank Survey («Банковское обозрение»), messengers audience in Russia consists of 50 million people. The proportion of the users of WhatsApp and Viber exceeds 50%. Then Skype comes and social media applications: VKontakte, Facebook Messenger and Odnoklassniki. The Telegram audience, one of the most technological messengers from the point of view of the ChatBot introduction possibilities, is 1-1,5 million users. Despite the relatively little audience, Telegram, as it appears, has the highest potential in the sphere of the ChatBot technologies development.
After testing the Russian bank solutions I found out that their ChatBots are rather formal things than real.
Though, it’s important to have a real solution, not simulation, in the bank sphere.
Bank/Project Bot address in Telegram
Sberbank @SberbankBot
AlfaBank @AlfaBank_officialbot
Promsviaz’bank @psbankbot
Raiffaisenbank @RaiffeisenbankBot
AkBars bank @akbars_bot
Russian Standart bank @BankRSBot
Sovcombot @SovCom_bot
Rocketbank (Opening) @rocketbank_bot
Yandex Wallet @YandexWalletBot
QIWI @qiwi_bot
TalkBank @TalkBankbot
The task of ChatBots is to completely substitute mobile phone applications, creating a new approach to the customer-company interaction.
It is important that the ChatBot could be not just an informative tool, but also could help the customer perform this or that transaction as he assigns in a written (text) or verbal (voice) form. Here are actual solutions of the Russian banks:
Today banks and financial organizations are very tentative in the development of a new communication channel. The ChatBot is a new channel of communication between the bank and the customer. And this channel is becoming more and more individualized. The ChatBot remembers the customer’s activity history and can offer the customer only those products he is interested in.
Today banks just spam customers with texts, messages and phone calls offering them needless products. ChatBots could find pointwise relevant solutions for customers.
The use of ChatBots in the USA is getting more and more popular. According to some data, over 100K bots have been created. Among them there are such vivid representatives as these three on-trend bots-financial counselors: Plum, Chip, Сleo.
They are startups designed to consult customers on finance.
They operate by means of connecting to the base of the customers’ financial transactions. There are several services of this kind in the USA, to which users can add the information about their financial transactions in automatic mode. Mint is an example of such services.
Further on, Bots analyze your debit and credit and offer to build a certain amount of money, save or add savings account. In other words, they act as your personal financial advisors.
Some time ago the FIClub company approached Endurance with the request to develop such a solution for them. But with the insufficient financing of the project we developed only the first alfa version of the ChatBot.
The task was also to teach the ChatBot to communicate with users by means of a normal human speech: answer questions, give consultations and advice.
To answer questions the ChatBot needs a vast database of knowledge.
In the USA there are ChatBots created by banks too.
Thus, the bank ChatBot Eno enables customers to exchange messages with the bank, pay bills, get bank statements, etc. A normal human language is used to communicate.
The ChatBot Letstock operates in the Facebook Messenger and you can use it to get the info about the stock quotation, asking your questions in a written form or orally.
AJ Bell developed the ChatBot PollyChat for the Facebook Messenger. It asks users about their attitude to the current news and on the basis of their answers creates financial profiles to give recommendations on financial operations and help with the selection of instruments for trade.
The natural speech recognition module lies at the heart of any ChatBot. This is the first step on the way to the artificial intelligence creation. There are three major providers of these solutions: IBM Watso, Microsoft LUIS and Google NLU.
According to the Gartner prognosis, by 2020 customers will regulate 85% of the communications with service providers via ChatBots, without contacting people. In this context, the growing trend of the ChatBot introduction into the financial sector looks quite logical, and this is not quite clear why Russian banks and financial companies are afraid to invest money, time and efforts into this new channel of communication.
Messengers can become a full-fledged platform for paying bills and cash transfer.
Personally, I lack this option of online funds transfer from one card to another in the messenger of Telegram or Facebook.
For example, Western Union selected Viber to give the customers an opportunity to transfer funds with the help of two buttons. In the December of 2016 Viber had about 754 million users all around the world. The Western Union customers in the USA, Great Britain, Ireland and France could transfer funds using Viber.
Viber is a good platform, which has recently opened its API for developers, and at the same time the only messenger I deleted because of pouring spam.
ChatBots in messengers have already won the market financial tecnologies. Today you can already buy flight tickets, pay utility bills and order purchases online after one minute chat with a robot by means of just one click on the social networking site to which your payment card is connected. ChatBots are slowly and firmly keeping out mobile applications, though some time ago online banking was thought the pinnacle of quick and easy financial transactions.
However, this is true for the USA and Europe.
To sum up, it’s worth noting that ChatBots can be used not only in the financial field but also in other business spheres.
1. In banking – automatic presentation of bank services, bank statements and financial transactions from card to card.
2. In the sphere of e-commerce – selection of goods on request according to certain parameters, consultations on goods, order taking, collection of customers’ information; booking, promotional actions and discounts information.
3. In medicine – check of the medical service availability and medical appointment booking, medical consultations and recommendations on drug administration, medical tests, additional medical examination or hospitalizing if necessary,
4. In education – knowledge testing, training agenda checking, educational content obtaining.
5. In the catering business – search for nearest dining places, booking a table, placing an order without waiting or ordering food home.
6. In the hotel business – search for nearest hotels and hostels, room selection according to the given criteria, room booking, food delivery ordering.
7. In the car service – order acceptance without an operator.
8. Information and entertainment portals – e-newsletters and portal records sending.
9. In the travel industry – search for travels, prices comparison, last minute travel offers, information about the political situation in countries, weather forecast.
10. In the mobile and Internet service — information about calling and pricing plans, your mobile phone plan; in complicated cases a real consultant will participate in the chat; thanks to ChatBots, operators will act to solve only complicated issues, leaving simple questions to their virtual colleagues.
