Swedbank Group, a major financial institution in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, has begun using Nuance Nina, an intelligent virtual assistant that delivers a human-like, conversational customer service experience.

Banking customers simply type their question to the virtual assistant, who will aim to identify the financial services required by the user. The solution was introduced to reduce the amount of time customers spend on the phone, seeking answers or advice. Since implementation, there has been a 78 per cent first-contact resolution within the first three months – limiting the number of calls that the bank’s customer service department receive each day.

For those customers who still prefer to use the telephone, Swedbank employees will also have access to Nina to quickly source answers to enquiries, limiting the average call time. There has been an average of 30,000 virtual conversations per month since deployment, with the virtual assistant currently answering eight out of every 10 questions, with the prospect of improving.

The conversational experience is powered by Nuance’s Natural Language Understanding (NLU), which allows applications such as Nina to understand customer intent through an interactive text-based chat experience.

Martin Kedbäck, channel management at Swedbank, said: “With Nina, our customers have more opportunities to get in contact with us in the way they prefer. We like to be where our customers are, and that includes providing support online and in our other digital channels.”

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