The Volksbank Mittelhessen, one of the largest cooperative banks in Germany, has decided to adopt a voice Virtual Assistant from Spitch and is “enthusiastic” about using it. “Customers can reach us faster and easier because the callers end up in exactly the right place”, says Melanie Mester, Change Manager at Volksbank Mittelhessen. The new system is making sure that all callers can express their requests in natural language. The Spitch Virtual Assistant recognizes a total of 25 different customer intents, and immediately steers the call to the right contact center agent.
Melanie Mester goes on to explain: “We initially considered putting a conventional DTMF IVR telephone system. But with voice assistant, where any caller can simply say what they want instead of pressing buttons, we are a generation ahead now. Callback requests and internal forwarding have been reduced to a minimum. We have been able to achieve a high target accuracy of 88% for almost all requests”.
The Volksbank Mittelhessen is also “enthusiastic” about the newly acquired flexibility of managing the announcement texts such as those for a new campaign, an attractive offer, or an upcoming web conference for customers. Typically, customers would listen to these announcements while the call is being forwarded (e.g., “While you are waiting: do you already know about our new service?”). Since it is clear why a customer is calling, it is also possible to select an announcement specific to the customer request.
The integrated calendar function is also used frequently: depending on the day of the week and time of day, a different text can be recorded. This enables automatic forwarding of calls to an external partner outside the opening hours of your own customer service center, or to arrange callbacks.
The team at Volksbank Mittelhessen is also “extremely impressed” by the evaluation options offered by the Spitch system. The bank staff can get an overview of the call volume at any time. What's more, the analytical reports can be called up with just a mouse click revealing analytics on the topics of the calls and other parameters. “The ability to react to changes enables us to adapt ad-hoc announcements and routings within a few hours. The database gives us an unprecedented opportunity to analyze call behavior”, says Melanie Mester.
Bernd Martin of Spitch explains: “The Spitch’s Virtual Assistant not only works immediately here and now but can also enable further digitalization in customer communication. Сallers can use voice biometrics for authentication, surveys can be carried out automatically, etc. There is a wide range of new functions to significantly increase customer and employee satisfaction. For example, the bank can easily add the automated processing of customer requests also in the text channels such as website chat, mobile app, social networks and popular messengers”.
More information about this and many other projects is available via this link.
