Tag: AI

Insights from Harry Singh, SVP, Global Decisioning, and Hristo Zahariev, Global Product Manager. Due to the global pandemic, one of the key challenges facing many consumers today is the ability to obtain support either from their credit provider or from government. This is manifesting itself in two ways – consumers facing very short-term financial difficulty, which might mean a payment holiday for a few months, or longer-term structural issues such as unemployment, which requires a very different set of treatments and outcomes. But what can businesses do to ensure consumer demand is met while taking care of customer experience? We look at the importance of digital channels within the decisioning environment, and how investment using AI can not only lead to consumer satisfaction now but also a sound business strategy for the future, regardless of how unpredictable that future may be.    How the industry can respond to consumers during this time of need A recent study from March this year looked at businesses that are not yet fully digital in terms of how they handle their consumer interactions, and how they can reach out to consumers to help them during the Covid-19 crisis. With call centers and operational centers closed, and anything between five and 50,000 applications a week coming into banks across the world since the pandemic began, businesses have inevitably been struggling with demand. Based on existing operational models examined within the study, if businesses were to manually manage these applications, they would need to double in size in terms of full-time employees, and follow-up interactions post approval may still not be met. Managing demand and staying compliant, while enabling consumers to successfully interreact without waiting hours to get through is the challenge faced by many businesses. It’s a balancing act that is both an opportunity and a risk and should be treated as such. Helping consumers in a way that is digital, while allowing for self-serve, is fundamental in meeting these new levels of demand - and doing so in a way that doesn’t feel demeaning to the consumer is where true differentiation begins. During a stressful time for consumers, it’s important that businesses step up to the challenge of demystifying their interactions, removing embarrassment around finances while also retaining an element of human engagement. Thanks to AI and a layered, cloud-first approach to decisioning, contacting pre-qualified consumers for both forbearance and hardship can now be done through a business’s banking application or their website, using artificially intelligent virtual assistants that can be deployed in a multitude of different digital channels. The consumer perspective: we need more than a chatbot Chatbots are very effective and useful in many ways, but when an interaction gets complex or there's something of a regulated or more subjective nature, it becomes difficult for that chatbot to provide the kind of service consumers are looking for. The answer lies in continuous learning, which moves away from the decision tree structure of a traditional chatbot and into the realms of natural language processing. The new age of virtual assistant remembers interactions and then learns from them, has short-term and long-term conversation goals, and recognizes small talk. The result feels a lot more empathetic and allows for always-on and real-time consumer interaction. How businesses can develop their strategies not only for today, but going forward Bringing together digital capabilities, analytical insights, and data to understand the affordability of a consumer is critical. Using demographic and geographic data, businesses need those insights, regardless of whether we are in a growth environment, a benign environment, or as we're seeing right now, a recession of macro-economic downturn. Businesses choosing to invest now to address their operational and strategic challenges are not just responding to Covid-19, they are looking beyond and into strategic requirements of the future. Financial difficulty may be more acute right now, but it has always existed and always will, for various reasons.  

In the second part of the Juniper Research and Experian podcast series on online payment fraud, we talk to Nick Maynard from Juniper Research, and David Britton, Vice President of Industry Solutions at Experian, about maturity in artificial intelligence and virtual assistants, and their current ability to respond to current business challenges. "What we're seeing in the consumer space is that AI is powering these virtual assistants and typically Alexa, Siri, Google, are the three big examples. What that's doing is creating an additional channel, it's a new way for users to interact... it mirrors the digital transition and the mobile transition over a number of years."Nick Maynard, Juniper Research "If you consider where artificial intelligence and machine learning are coming together, this is not going to be a big bang launch into market. We're seeing a slow, incremental roll-out." "In the physical world, when we talk about risk and recognition of a consumer, the human to human interaction takes in a tremendous number of variables to ensure that the person you're engaging with is who they claim to be.... in the digital space, that was eliminated overnight, and cosnumers were using a device as a proxy to represent them to another system or set of devices, like bank servers and eCommerce web servers." David Britton, VP of Industry Solutions We also discuss key points around evolving regulatory frameworks, and how they are driving change in identity-based solutions. Listen to the full podcast episode here, and don't forget to listen to What’s new in online payment fraud Part 1: Implications for consumers and businesses if you haven't already.

The speed at which the world is feeling the impact of Covid-19 is unparalleled. Because of this customer affordability has shifted into the unknown and businesses are trying to react quickly to assess customer risk in a brand-new context, albeit a temporary one. We look at the five key areas businesses should be considering when it comes to customer affordability. 1. Looking to insights The last financial crisis taught us that the first line of defense for many organizations, large and small, is to move straight into proactive debt restructuring to reduce the volume of customers who would otherwise fall immediately into debt collection. This crisis is no different, but identifying those in hardship, restructuring debt at speed, and in line with restricted policies are where businesses should be focusing to successfully tackle this. 2. Keeping regulators front of mind As a result of the last downturn, many financial regulators are placing a much higher weight of responsibility on lenders to make fair and transparent lending decisions when it comes to affordability. Not just when it comes to new lending, but also how they act and behave within collections. These rules are not going to be relaxed, so it’s important that businesses continue to prove that they remain compliant. 3. Predicting what’s to come Anticipating arrears before they happen, and at speed, is fundamental to managing the restructure of debt effectively. Especially where traditional data sources provide less predictive value. For businesses without advanced and automated debt restructure or collections-based program to begin with, this is an opportunity to develop something that will carry them through this time of crisis and beyond. 4. Harnessing analytics and AI Thinking predictively means getting the right analytical capabilities or models in place, ideally harnessing Machine Learning and AI to get the fastest and best results. For larger organizations, this will mean having the agility to rapidly update and deploy existing models, and for the less mature, it will mean building this from the ground up (but quickly). Businesses will undoubtedly see their analytics teams overstretched during this period, so now is the time to reduce the manual load and invest in these capabilities. 5. Automation for demand control Making sure customers can deal with organizations digitally will be critical to maintaining customer experience. It’s just as important to ensure that channels are integrated and automated in the backend. Businesses are looking to omni-channel digital solutions to help feed new demand through the funnel without having the added complication of a restricted workforce. It has never been more important to automate. More on Decision Analytics

Shri Santhanam, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Global Analytics and AI, speaks to Forbes' Peter High on his Technovation podcast about Experian's Analytics and AI solutions. During times of crisis, innovation accelerates. What was once considered innovation, suddenly falls into the realms of the necessary, with businesses seeking quick, smart solutions to emerging challenges. Although this conversation took place before COVID19 reached the levels of a global pandemic, Santhanam discusses how advanced analytics and AI can be a game-changer for businesses. Key topics include how businesses need to bring together data, tech and analytics to formulate best in class products and services using AI in the form of examples such as Experian Boost. What it takes to run the global analytics and AI function at Experian. How high-profile consulting positions within previous businesses have placed Santhanam in an ideal position to problem-solve. And what he considers to be the two stand-out developments in the analytics and AI space. Listen to the podcast, or read the interview.