Transforming the financial services customer experience with linguistics

Whatever part of the financial services sector you operate in, delivering an excellent customer experience is becoming a vital part of differentiating, increasing sales and retaining customers. However consumers are growing ever more demanding and less and less loyal. They want an excellent experience, whichever channel they chose – and they want it delivered quickly. Fail to deliver and they are very quick to switch to another provider.

These challenges are sure to be among the high level discussion areas at theIQPC Customer Experience Exchange for Financial Services event which Eptica is attending between 18-19 February. Aimed at senior level decision makers in financial services, the event features a mix of speakers, such as Forrester Research, along with Think Tank workshop sessions and one-to-one business meetings. Participants will have the chance to gain insight into key business problems around the customer experience, as well as the ability to learn from and network with their peers and industry leaders. This is the fourth IQPC event that Eptica has been involved in, in both Europe and Asia. Last year we sponsored the very successful Executive Customer Contact Exchange in Dublin.

So how can financial services companies deal with an increasing number of customer queries while reducing costs and improving the quality, speed and efficiency of every interaction?

Linguistic technology is at the heart of meeting the tough challenges that financial services companies face.  Linguistics automatically analyses incoming digital interactions from email, web or social media using natural language processing and semantic techniques, helping companies understand the real meaning, tone and context of what the customer is after so their needs can be more effectively and efficiently satisfied.

In our experience, implementing linguistics can deliver major benefits in five key areas:

1.    Quickly identify and prioritise high value conversations
The volume of interactions from customers is rising rapidly, so by analysing the sentiment and tone of a customer query (such as positive or negative language), linguistics technology can help prioritise key conversations and enable timely interventions to turn potentially lost customers into brand advocates – or drive engagement with new prospects in a timely manner to support conversions.

2.    Boost efficiency and First Contact Resolution (FCR) rates
Through linguistic search you can understand the true meaning of queries and automatically deliver a more accurate response from your knowledgebase. More queries are handled effectively during the initial interaction, whatever the channel, increasing efficiency and delivering higher First Contact Resolution rates.

3.    Deliver consistency and meet regulatory guidelines
Semantic analysis techniques such as linguistic search enable you to understand the context of a question, across any digital channel, and automatically provide a more consistent response from your knowledgebase, anytime and anywhere. This consistent response, built on an auditable process, increases customer satisfaction and delivers a written record of interactions which guards against misselling claims.

4.    Reinforce loyalty by allowing customers to use their own ‘language’
For many consumers financial services is full of jargon which they don’t completely understand and find awkward to use.  Linguistics helps you understand your customer’s language and the terms they use for your products and services, as well as specific formats such as text speak and Twitter. By allowing customers to interact in their own way you strengthen loyalty and improve the customer experience.

5.    Listen to the Voice of your Customers to track sentiment over time
Linguistics can be used to track sentiment around product names across all your digital channels and monitor how it is changing month by month. By sharing this information with the entire business you will benefit from a comprehensive view of your customers.

Whatever area of financial services you operate in, linguistics delivers the ability to transform and automate customer experience management processes, and better understand customers. You can excel operationally and meet regulatory requirements while helping build customer intimacy and loyalty. To find out more, get in touch or talk to us at the IQPC event.