How Commbank says it humanises the service delivery experience

Humanising the service delivery experience can lead to better outcomes for customers and for businesses, according to a senior CommBank executive.

In a panel discussion at the Pega Evolve for Government virtual event, Vicki Wood, group lead for customer engagement engine delivery at Commonwealth Bank (CBA) discussed the bank’s customer engagement engine (CEE), powered by Pegasystems.

According to Wood, the CEE provides rich information about customers, to better inform what Wood describes as the “next best conversation”, to deliver more connected experiences for customers.

“We use AI and intelligence to basically determine what the most relevant conversation is to have. And we're making all of those decisions using Pega within what we would say a fraction of a second or milliseconds, and then delivering it back out to the customer's channel of choice. And at the moment we have the engagement engine that sits across 19 different communication channels,” said Wood.

According to Matt Nolan, head of decision science at Pegasystems, driving meaning in conversations with customers depends on responding to a unique need.

“Instead of using the traditional marketing and segmentation campaign tactics a lot of people used for like for 50 years or so, we look at each person individually,” said Nolan.

“You really ask yourself, do I have something very meaningful and personal that I can talk to this person about today? If you don’t that’s okay. You don't say anything because silence is pretty much golden.”

Nolan suggests that these personal interactions build loyalty and connection between customers and the business.

“What you're really doing is finding the perfect thing to say in the moment and then making that experience amazing for somebody because there's tremendous value in doing that in any market, anywhere in the world,” he said.

Some of the personalised experiences that CBA is focusing on includes reminding customers of credit card payments before they are due.

“We really are trying to avoid them having late fees,” she said.

The business is also using digital to identify any customers that may be impacted by natural disasters such as floods and bushfires, to provide timely support.

“We have the ability to either contact that customer and let them know we're there for them to provide help and advice and also ensuring the branch and call centres also know about that customer should that customer call in,” said Wood.

“As a data and analytics person I think that's probably the most connected I've been able to feel to the customer by being able to really feel like we're helping.”