Voice banking sucks. Why?
(And how could it be better?)
Not a single day goes by without fresh news of voice user interfaces (VUIs) or AI. Banking leads the list of industries in terms of digital assistant investments, now that Amazon and Google have started to move into their customers’ living room. But initial reactions show that riding the tide is not enough: banks need to work hard to take voice banking to the same experience level as turning lights-down when going to bed.
Numbers freak me out
Digital banking has never been in an easy position, as it usually combines the worst of many customer aspects:
- hard to digest information
- usually presented on over complicated interfaces
- with everlasting processes
- where professional jargon is used to label everything.
It is no surprise that most complaints occur when it comes to anything above checking balance or paying the landlord. Customers become frustrated and angry when repeatedly fail a relatively simple task or when they are unable to understand what they read. This frustration damages banks reputation heavily. Not only do the banks’ Twitter accounts get flooded with hate, but frustration quickly teaches customers to avoid non-self-explanatory content on sites: products and services that are meant to generate the biggest revenue. Selling them requires customers with at least moderate financial knowledge, healthy financial life, goals and challenges. That can only be achieved with proper communication, by gently educating the customers, just as banks did back in the day when branches were the only point of contact.
Banks expect VUIs to achieve it all: kill the frustration and grab every opportunity.
What we experience is that banks expect VUIs to achieve it all: kill the frustration and grab every opportunity to educate customers through short but smart interactions. And right after that discover the created opportunity and flawlessly execute the sales.
But are they really capable of doing that?
The VUI technology has already proved to speed up access of information and execution between humans and machines. In certain use cases (e.g. food ordering) very soon it won’t matter anymore whether we designed the best GUI or not: it will still be faster to simply say what we would like to eat. Just as kids do in restaurants instead of reading the menu. Since deep down in our hearts we are all kids, all these simple solutions attract us. But what if our mother was not picking us a dish, but instead started to narrow down the list by reading whole sections and asking back questions? Then we’d have to think through all of it and reply, spending significantly more time with this back and forth game until finally making our choice.
We phase the exact same situation in banking today. Looking through our transactions online is painful but undoubtedly faster than having them read out. Checking balance is easy but understanding how it will change in the future or what affect it will have on our financial life is challenging for our ears. There is a cognitive reason for that: it is estimated that we receive more than 85% of the information about the world around us, using vision. Still the new trend of VUIs shows a voice only future, based on the recent line of speaker-type devices.
More than 85% of all the information humans perceive is visual.
Banks should consider the graphical interfaces their existing digital channels have. These channels shouldn’t be replaced by voice only devices, but rather be extended by voice command capabilities to take away all the friction of current navigation. As a result we could finally talk to our mobile bank. Would we really do it? Some maybe, but the example of Siri showed that it’s technological novelty didn’t replace existing user routines, most people haven’t stopped typing their text messages or keywords in Google and started dictating. They choose to remain slow in favour of their habits.
What about home devices? Most banking customers have no experience with them therefore these interfaces still have those momentums ahead that define the way we would love (or hate) to use them. They still have the chance to become something truly revolutionary for banking.
How to become revolutionary for banking?
Beloved things have an effect on many senses at the same time (e.g. a good concert, an iPhone or a slice of hot pie). Home devices already look and feel nice in our home, and their communication skills advance at a good pace. What they truly lack is a screen, a way to present information that would be hard or even impossible to digest with our ears only. Why should any customer compare spoken numbers instead of looking at coloured charts? Why should I listen to a list I requested when I can read it faster? Or why should I only listen, concentrate hard on an automated sales pitch from my assistant about a car loan while it could be supported by simple animated charts, giving it a chance to convince me about the minor fiscal difference between saving for something or paying the same monthly amount as loan instalment.
Amazon seems to be the first to crack this question: their motivation roots in the vast amount of visually appealing products they offer, so they needed a voice enabled device that can actually show stuff for its users. This is how Echo Show was born, a home speaker half covered with a screen, using voice for user commands and it’s screen to display content.
Moreover, since it is not strange to talk to a home device why limit yourself to a small screen? Why don’t we dock our tablet or phone and let Alexa or others to use that as their display channel? When we finish making a sandwich in the kitchen, wouldn’t it be handy to ask our Assistant to put our financial prediction charts on the TV, so we can continue browsing in the living room?
I believe removing all barriers that currently make it hard for customers to get involved in finances is a key priority for banks, where automation and voice-based assistants would be a big help. Banks need to be really careful with the introduction of these services and identify the right moments and triggers for first proactive advices in order to avoid denial. That is the tricky moment when the assistant becomes something more than a fancy way to ask your balance. As an example, banks should put great emphasis on the assistants memory: it’s worth speaking with banking assistants if they remember the details and target their content accordingly just as well as human agents do.
By introducing voice banking right, bank has the opportunity to cost-effectively push its mass segment towards the mass affluent level and gain happy, loyal customers.
Cover photo credit goes to ZDNet
