Discover how Banco Patagonia transformed user support with the help of etermax AI Labs

The banking sector has accelerated its digital transformation through digitization and the use of artificial intelligence. This is happening in a highly competitive and dynamic market where putting the customer at the center is key. The goal is to offer innovative solutions that allow users to self-manage from anywhere, on any device, at any time of the day.

Banks want to be where their users are, listening to their problems and providing support through a personalized and effective experience. Personalization at scale can generate a 10% increase in annual revenue if done correctly, as most users state that they would purchase a personalized product from their bank.

A Time for Change and Adaptation

What can banks do to personalize their products, improve the user experience, and strengthen their relationship with users?

The answer lies in technology. To provide a better experience, banks must transform their user support process, placing the user as the protagonist. Factors such as fast and efficient assistance, as well as personalization, will have a significant impact on the user experience.

With the aim of streamlining user support, Banco Patagonia underwent an ambitious technological evolution. In collaboration with etermax AI Labs and using IBM Watson technology, they created the virtual assistant Padi, which is a fundamental pillar in implementing their user relationship strategy. Through conversational solutions, they began offering support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The key differentiator? Responses that empathize with the user and provide quality solutions, either through self-management or by redirecting the contact to specialized operators when necessary.

Padi aims to be the primary support channel for Banco Patagonia users. It conveys dynamism, demonstrates emotions based on the flow of dialogue, has no gender, is friendly, kind, and provides concise answers. Its identity emerged from a design thinking workshop with the user at the center. Thanks to all this work, it was awarded an innovation prize by the Grupo Brasil.

When we talk about Padi, we cannot fail to mention that it is an omnichannel assistant. Currently, it provides support through the Patagonia Móvil app, e-banking, website, and social media (Facebook), with plans to expand to new channels. Since its launch, it has already increased interactions by 5 times, with steady monthly growth, surpassing the volume of support received through traditional phone channels by over 60%. A great example of Padi’s usability was during the pandemic when it successfully handled an unexpected surge in online inquiries. The preferred channel? Mobile overwhelmingly dominates, with over 60% of interactions occurring through the app.

The Technology behind the Service

Developing Padi involves using advanced Natural Language Processing algorithms, a branch of Artificial Intelligence that has made remarkable advancements in recent years. This technology identifies the most suitable response to complex questions by considering the global context and guiding the conversation with the user to successfully resolve their queries or needs. If the Virtual Assistant is not trained with an appropriate response, it applies business rules to redirect the interaction to the most suitable resolution channel. In Banco Patagonia’s case, Padi’s comprehension and confidence levels exceed 96% and 74%, respectively.

To implement Padi, Banco Patagonia worked alongside etermax AI Labs to apply the cognitive solution using IBM Watson Assistant on the Genesys Purecloud Omnichannel Platform, marking the first implementation of this kind in Argentina.

Simultaneously, the bank deployed a team of Digital Advisors consisting of the best talents within the organization, who handle cases requiring more complex treatment.

Who is behind the technology?

When a chatbot is based on artificial intelligence, it understands us in a similar way to how people understand each other: by learning through examples. Chatbots are trained through examples that allow them to understand what is relevant in a sentence to provide a specific meaning or sense and, based on that, find the best response. Additionally, determining the best response depends on whether the company already has pre-prepared messages for certain inquiries (e.g., business hours) or if it is necessary to use other sources of information to search for the appropriate knowledge that addresses those needs.

This is how etermax AI Labs constructs and trains virtual assistants designed to engage in useful and enjoyable conversations with users. In this regard, it is essential to ensure that the bot not only understands the question but also makes sense of the conversation, enabling it to decide how to respond according to the company’s policies. Therefore, training customized artificial intelligence models and integrating them with the systems of the requesting company is necessary for these projects. It is also crucial to have specialized roles such as conversational experience designers, computational linguists, natural language processing experts, data scientists, architects, developers, and quality assurance.

Continued Evolution

Virtual assistants offer numerous benefits in terms of quality customer service, which is why they are becoming more widespread and sophisticated in various dimensions. When compared to the early chatbots that only answered frequently asked questions, the current trend is conversational transactionality (the ability to perform transactions through chat or voice with a bot), expanding the bot to other channels, social media, and even phones (obviously through voice), and handling more complex inquiries by incorporating a company’s knowledge platform. Meeting these trends requires knowledge of technologies such as speech processing, new architectures and language models, knowledge management and access technologies, among others.

User experience is a key factor for success in the banking sector. It is essential to know the profile and needs of each user in detail so that each contact generates value and differentiation. All of this is possible by combining specialized technology consulting with flexible and scalable solutions over time.