Technological Development Is a Blitz, But the Teller Window Persists

Still, Maciej Brzozowski emphasised the crucial role of human contact. In his opinion, bots work well in simple matters, but those more complicated still require involvement of a bank employee, and not because of technological barriers. “The use of bots for customer service and direct contact with the customer are complementary solutions that are equally important. Of course, wherever we have standardised processes, repetitive activities and the customers expect everything to be done quickly, efficiently and without too much effort, bots and IT solutions must come to the fore. It is very common, very widely deployed. It’s an important thing, but I wouldn’t say it has a definite advantage compared to human contact”, he pointed out.

“We also need to start thinking about the customer’s needs from a psychological and sociological point of view because this is an important element. What good is it if we can only talk to our customer remotely? We can design the system in such a way that we would hardly ever see a customer at a branch, but is that the point? No, the customer has his own needs, he wants to meet”, argued the Vice-President of PKO Bank Polski.

This Must Be Learned

According to a study conducted last year, more than 70 percent of Polish consumers declared that they had interacted with a bot in the past six months. If the contact involved simple, repetitive actions, consumers expressed satisfaction because they were served quickly and did not have to wait for the hotline to open or for a consultant to connect. But if the issue was complex, the ratings were very negative.

“Today we are experiencing a phenomenon that is referred to in the literature as the ‘Uncanny Valley’. The mechanism of this phenomenon is that at a certain point, we start to feel discomfort or apprehension stemming precisely from the interaction with a bot. This is because we do not know how it is going to behave and its response is disappointing”, explained Katarzyna Sanak-Kosmowska, Ph.D., from the Cracow Business School at UEK.

In her opinion, this very experience is the reason why customers are dissatisfied with service provided by bots; they are not yet used to this method and have not accepted it. However, this can be changed through education.

“We are at the stage of technology frenzy. We see it as be-all and end-all, one-size-fits-all solution, which is not the case. Chat bots, let’s face it, are the 1.0 version of this path we are embarking upon. I believe that until we focus on education related to interacting with artificial intelligence in general, until we learn to prompt (ask questions of AI, train machine models – ed.), learn to understand what is behind it, for a long time we are going to treat the AI as some kind of overlay. Only with a strategic, comprehensive approach we will be able to use its potential to the fullest”, she argued.

Age Not as Important as One Would Think

Interestingly, the companies’ experience shows that the age of the customers does not determine their willingness to use modern technology in any significant way.

“One could say that every other elderly person who uses Lotto solutions, buys a coupon or scratch card remotely, uses digital tools. I think this is a pretty good result, especially given that the system has only been in place for six years. You can see that digitalisation is expanding to include older people”, said Tomasz Bartkowicz, director of contact centre services at Lottomerkury.

The myth of age as a barrier to using technology was also debunked by Maciej Brzozowski. “Today’s 65-year-olds were 50 years old in 2008. And what, they didn’t use computers, the internet or online banking then? They did and they will continue doing the same today, so the whole age-related narrative is shaky. I think age no longer represents the threshold for using technology”, opined the Vice-President of PKO Bank Polski.

TB