In recent years conversational banking has become the new way banks and fintech businesses manage a great deal of their customer support. It involves using digital solutions like chat, voice messaging and visual engagement tools to engage customers in human-like conversations. Businesses use AI-powered chatbots to engage with customers and do various tasks such as sending payment reminders, qualifying leads, automating their sales, and many more.

Is WhatsApp safe for banking? #

Safety and privacy are common concerns for banks. WhatsApp conversations are end-to-end encrypted, meaning nobody, not even WhatsApp or its parent company, Meta, can read your customer communications. Please, check your local regulations and policy to see how to comply in your country. When it comes to GDPR, there are a few things you can do to be compliant:

• Obtain opt-in from your customers - WhatsApp strongly recommends businesses to receive consent from their customers that explicitly mention they wish to receive messages from your business on WhatsApp. To be GDPR-compliant, businesses must obtain opt-ins before messaging customers too.

• Right to know about data storage - You must tell your customers about the following:

• Your organization’s liable personnel for data protection

• The purpose of storing their information

• How long you store their data

• Right to Access and Deletion of Archived Communications - Your customers must be able to get a copy of their personal data and supplementary information. Moreover, it must be possible to erase their data if they request it.

Use cases of WhatsApp chatbots in banking #

Banks have been implementing chatbots in their apps to help their customers self-serve. Customers can benefit from those chatbots in various ways, like getting payment reminders, retrieving transaction history, and many more.

But what about the potential customers who don’t have the bank’s app on their phones yet? How could they get their answers quickly? A WhatsApp chatbot is a perfect solution to this problem.

Organize customer service inquiries #

When people enter a bank, the first thing they do is stand in line and wait for their number to be called before they can meet a customer service agent.

A bot could do the same thing but better. Before assigning an agent, bots can gather information about the customer and build a profile. This will speed up the process and help find the most relevant person for the client’s needs.

Lead qualification #

For things like loan qualification and giving insurance quotes, banks need to gather specific information about their prospects to see if they qualify. You can design a bot to ask prospects relevant questions and if they pass the first screening stage, an agent from your team could reach out to them for more specific qualification checks.

For example, if a potential lead is looking for a home loan, your bot could ask them about their age, salary history, desired home price, and credit history to see if they meet the prerequisites. If they do, then an agent from your team could guide them further.

Lead generation #

Customers can message your business on WhatsApp to get information on your products and services, and your chatbot can guide them. For example, they may want to open an account or purchase something. If it can’t do that, it refers them to an agent in your bank.

You could advertise your products and services via Facebook and Instagram ads with click-to-WhatsApp buttons. Once customers click on them, their WhatsApp app opens, and your chatbot can answer their questions or guide them step by step to become a customer.

With WhatsApp’s rich media capabilities, people can easily upload documents like ID cards and photos; therefore, banking services are made easy with WhatsApp.

Reminders and notifications #

A WhatsApp chatbot could remind customers of their upcoming payments and notify them about withdrawals and received payments. If there is any suspicious activity on their accounts, a bot could notify them and let them take quick actions such as blocking their debit card.

Benefits of a WhatsApp chatbot for a bank #

24//7 customer support #

Customers can reach your business any time of the day and resolve their pains with a WhatsApp chatbot. This is especially helpful for anything that needs quick action, such as blocking an account in case of debit card theft.

Fast customer support #

With a bot, you can handle unlimited customer inquiries simultaneously. Customers don’t need to stay on the phone for long to speak with a customer support agent. There is no need to wait in long lines and fill up lengthy forms. Everything is at the tips of their fingers.

Higher efficiency and lower labor cost #

Many standardized, repetitive processes can be automated with a WhatsApp chatbot. This way, you free up some time for your team members. Instead, they focus on activities that require human intervention and personalized service.

Improve conversion rate #

Your bank can simultaneously handle unlimited customer inquiries with a WhatsApp chatbot. This means customers don’t need to wait for long and your bot could guide them from the first touchpoint until they make a purchase. In otherwords, your WhtsApp bot increases your conversion rate.

How to create a WhatsApp chatbot for your bank #

In A simple strategy for creating a user-friendly WhatsApp chatbot, we talk about the steps you need to take before creating a bot:

Step 1: Brainstorm your WhatsApp chatbot’s purpose/goal

Step 2: Draw a flowchart of the chatbot conversation

Step 3: Create the chatbot
Step 4: Test your WhatsApp chatbot

Step 5: Monitor and improve your chatbot

Below, a hypothetical bank has decided that it needs a bot to qualify the leads for home loans (step 1). Based on their regulations and requirements, they want to create a flowchart (step 2). The bank needs to ask applicants a set of questions to know if they qualify as borrowers. It’s time-consuming for agents to ask potential borrowers the same questions over and over. Therefore, a chatbot can be designed to do this job and refer qualified candidates to agents. Below is a potential flowchart of the questions the bot must ask:

The next step (step 3) is to create the bot. You can get a WhatsApp chatbot in two ways:

• Create it from scratch with programming
• Get one from a bot builder and customize it for your needs.

Regardless of what you choose to do, you must have some pre-requisites:

• A Facebook Business account
• A phone number that meets Meta’s criteria
• Access to the WhatsApp Business API or WhatsApp Cloud API
• A team inbox or CRM to send and receive messages

Neither of the WhatsApp APIs has an interface/inbox to send and receive messages. Therefore, a business must purchase an inbox or a CRM for customer communications. Rasayel is a WhatsApp inbox that lets you communicate with your customers over WhatsApp as a team. It offers many features, such as bulk messaging, a chatbot, reports, automation rules, and more.

If you want to use Rasayel as your WhatsApp inbox and build a chatbot, you can use either of our Premium or Enterprise plans:

Premium Plan ($200 per month) #

It’s suitable for high-volume teams with complex workflows and has the following features:

• For up to 10 team members
• $20 per additional member
• You can connect up to 50 channels (either multiple WhatsApp channels or Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and more)
• Unlimited contacts
• Unlimited messages
• Importing contacts
• Have it in your browser or as a mobile app for android and ios devices
• Assignments rules
• Custom views
• Bots
• Campaigns
• Auto notifications
• Reporting
• Ability to integrate with Shopify, HubSpot and Zapier
• Priority support via email or chat
• Onboarding support

Enterprise Plan (Custom Pricing) #

This is the option for teams that need a custom-tailored plan. They receive all of the functionalities of the premium plan. It has the same features as the premium plan, including bots, plus the following:

• It can be customized for the number of team members you have.
• You can connect unlimited channels.
• We provide training.

You may try Rasayel for free for 14 days. No credit card is needed.

Once you create your bot, you need to test it internally to see if it works smoothly (Step 4).
Then, you can release it and monitor it closely to see whether it’s working as you expect it to. Every month, have a look at a sample of 10% of your customer inquiries that the bot has handled. Did it handle them efficiently? Did the customers get their questions answered? Do they tend to exit the flow at some point without getting their answer? If yes, then you’d need to change something about your bot.

Using a WhatsApp bot for your business is an iterative process that needs constant improvement. Creating the perfect bot will take some time, but it’s worth it.

Conclusion #

Banks can use a WhatsApp chatbot to automate many customer services. They can use it to answer FAQs, qualify leads, convert them to become customers and send them reminders and notifications. Customers can receive immediate help, and agents will be able to free up time to focus on work that requires human thinking and presence.

Learn more #

If you’d like to learn more about how WhatsApp can help you grow your business, please reach out to us on WhatsApp at +13024070488

We also offer a free consultation session where we go through your use case, answer any questions you have about WhatsApp, and help you build a strategy to make the best out of the platform. Book a call with us here. We’d love to speak with you:

For Europe, the Middle East, and Africa

For North and South America

Further reading #

A simple strategy for creating a user-friendly WhatsApp chatbot

Everything you need to know about WhatsApp chatbots