While the chatbots are supposed to represent a cost-effective way to handle customer inquiries and issues, the technology has a spotty record of success, says the consumer protection agency. “To reduce costs, many financial institutions are integrating artificial intelligence technologies to steer people toward chatbots,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “A poorly deployed chatbot can lead to customer frustration, reduced trust, and even violations of the law.”
Often, the bots are specifically programmed to simulate human communication patterns and are even marketed with human names, says the organization. The adoption of the bots has been steady and growing, and according to information from the CFPB, approximately 37% of U.S. residents encountered a bank chatbot at least once in 2022. All 10 of the largest commercial banks in the U.S. use some form of a chatbot to address customer concerns.
From Twitter
The Economic Largest Official @Telo_global ·May 29
"JPMorgan has announced that it is developing a ChatGPT-like AI service that leverages company data and provides investment advice to customers. Earlier this month, the bank filed a trademark application for a finance-themed chatbot called IndexGPT."
“Financial institutions advertise that their chatbots offer a variety of features to consumers like retrieving account balances, looking up recent transactions, and paying bills,” according to the CFPB. “Much of the industry uses simple rule-based chatbots with either decision tree logic or databases of keywords or emojis that trigger preset, limited responses or route customers to Frequently Asked Questions.”
Other chatbots, like Bank of America’s “Erica” and Capital One’s Eno, are trained with actual customer conversation logs and other algorithms designed to create a more organic customer experience.
The bureau identified several notable risk factors regarding the use of the bots, which include noncompliance with federal consumer protection law, diminished trust and service and harmful and inaccurate responses regarding products and services offered by the bank.
“Financial products and services can be complex, and the information being sought by people shopping for or using those products and services may not be easily retrievable or effectively reduced to an FAQ response. Financial institutions should avoid using chatbots as their primary customer service delivery channel when it is reasonably clear that the chatbot is unable to meet customer needs,” notes the CFPB.
From Twitter
"Students are quick to evolve, adopt 'Half of students across the US and Europe’s biggest economies who have heard of ChatGPT have tried OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-powered, text-generating chatbot' - Deutsche Bank survey of 10,000 households"
Recently, the American Bankers Association (ABA) shared some suggestions for banks considering deploying chatbots for customer service.
The trade group suggests programming the bots to deliver short, concise responses to efficiently deliver help where it is needed. It also suggests limiting the amount of marketing language and other superfluous language in responses in order to simplify the experience.
“In addition to concise, simple responses, banking organizations should prioritize giving customers the option to be always connected to a live agent throughout an interaction,” reads the guidance. “When a bank is authoring its questions and responses, it should include the opportunity to opt-out by typing the word ‘agent’ at the end of each response.”
