Whether it’s convening a ride to your exact location or same-day delivery to your door, one of the primary goals of technology today is convenience. And the innovators are coming for your keyboard.
In the near future, voice control will replace tapping, clicking, and scrolling. Rather than just asking a question and hearing an answer, digital assistants roll up their virtual sleeves and get to work for their users, from payment to paper distribution. In the context of personal banking, this conversational engagement will allow bank customers and members of credit unions to derive more value from their relationships with their financial institutions.
The opportunity with conversational banking is not to be able to ask: “What is my account balance?” “Sitting around a table or” Where is the nearest branch? »From your smartphone equipped with navigation. It’s being able to ask your virtual personal assistant to compile a report of your 10 most recent transactions and send it to you by SMS, to determine if you received your deposit of the child tax credit in November, to schedule a bill payment on its due date as you enter the airport, or to transfer $ 100 to your student’s account while you drive to dinner. In fact, recent research has found that over 41% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company that allows them to use voice commands to manage their money or payments.
US consumers are ready to take the leap to voice banking. In 2020, NPR and Edison Research reported that 63% of American adults use voice-activated personal assistants. They talk to their Apple TVs to watch The Blacklist and to their Amazon Alexa devices to order groceries that meet their dietary needs. These changing spending habits in the non-financial aspects of day-to-day life are paving the way for voice technology to take hold in personal finance.
The beauty of conversational banking is not in black and white; it is the rainbow of personalized results that meet the unique needs of the user. From a financial perspective, this ranges from personalized recommendations for financial products to personal financial management (PFM) tools that allow the client or member to analyze their spending and saving habits and habits from a number of different angles, no spreadsheet needed.
In February 2021, Bank of America reported that there were 17 million users of its virtual assistant Erica, a 67% increase since 2019. Clearly there is demand, and the good news is that conversational voice banking. based on AI is now available to everyone. financial institutions of all sizes.
Banks and credit unions that now offer conversational banking are ensuring that they are not left behind for the foreseeable future. The giants of Silicon Valley are laying the groundwork for our everyday reality to be voice-driven by creating voice-activated cloud computing software in almost every new gadget, vehicle, and building. Technology will soon go far beyond interacting with your financial accounts on a one-to-one basis. Your personal virtual assistant will make it easier for you to pay, subscribe, buy, reserve and more – to complete almost any transaction that requires your payment information.
As smart speaker adoption now exceeds 90 million users at 35% of the adult US population, according to Voicebot’s 2021 US Smart Speaker Adoption Report, the story of conversational banking isn’t that devices are getting more and more popular. The real story is with the software platform behind these interfaces. Artificial intelligence enables an unprecedented level of personalization and – you guessed it – convenience.
It’s time for financial institutions of all sizes to rethink the value of customers and members being able to bank with the help of Siri on their smartphones or Alexa in their living rooms. Not only does conversational voice banking allow users to type on the keypad, it can also open up a whole new world of capabilities. “What is my account balance? Is just the start.
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