These Four Banks Are Leveraging on Whatsapp to Drive Customer Intimacy
Would you love to receive credit alerts from your banks on WhatsApp?
Like you finish a transaction on Whatsapp and the customer/client tells you that he has paid the money; can you imagine the relative ease of chatting with your bank immediately to find out why you have not gotten the alert or any other complaints you may have about your banking transactions?
Since the roll out of Whatsapp business; we have had conversations on how it can be explored towards increasing the bottom lines for companies and brands. But the recent announcement by some banks in the country are exploring the chat-messaging platform to help engender customer loyalty and personalised service.
As of today, these four banks are leveraging on WhatsApp to drive customer intimacy:
Guarantee Trust Bank (GTBank)
It is of no surprise to see GTB among the list as it was the first financial institution in Nigeria to set up a fully interactive contact centre in 2006 and has, since then, led the finance sector in driving customer interaction across online and social media platforms. The Bank’s Whatsapp service will enable customers to chat with GTBank on their mobile phones and request for basic banking services using the advised prompts.
To connect with GTBank on WhatsApp, customers simply have to save the mobile number- 09060001601, as “GTBank” on their mobile phones, open their WhatsApp mobile app and request for any banking service using the advised prompts. The bank says all service requests will be treated instantly, depending on the internet connection of the user.
First Bank of Nigeria (FBN)
In a service currently available to selected customers in its pilot stage, First Bank customers would be able to leverage the real-time messaging capabilities of the WhatsApp Business solution to check their account balances as well as perform simple banking queries.
United Bank for Africa (UBA)
In January, UBA launched UBA Leo, its ‘Chat Banker’. Leo is an artificial intelligence (AI) powered bot that performs banking transactions on Facebook to ease customers of the stress of going to a physical branch.
In order to expand its reach, UBA has launched a pilot mode on Whatsapp that would be fully available to customers by September 1, 2018. With Leo on WhatsApp, customers who are lovers of the app will be able to open new accounts, check their balances on the go and carry out basic banking services.
Access Bank
Access bank is not left out of the list of WhatsApp banking as it has also leveraged on WhatsApp to drive customer intimacy. Access Bank’s customers can now use the bank’s mobile app, Access Mobile, to effortlessly engage their Relationship Managers in the provision of customised and responsive banking services, using the WhatsApp messaging feature on the platform.
It is no gainsaying that WhatsApp has become a more personal and readily available medium on interaction for people and brands. Hence, the move by these banks is sure to change the way customer relations is done. Whatsapp does not consume a lot of data and is usually not subjected to the same level of instability experienced while using applications when the data network is fluctuating, hence, making it easily accessible and convenient.
Apart from this helping to drive customer intimacy, it will help shape financial services by targeting specific communities, help the financial institution to reduce costs and adapt business functions through customer relationship management (CRM).
Do you feel we left out any bank? Please kindly drop your comment, so as to include it in our list.
