Over twenty-five million customers, over 1,000 business offices and customer touch points, in 20 African countries, one efficient and reliable 24/7 personalized Bank Teller and Customer Service Officer. UBA, not resting, has continued to stay on its toes in making Leo, the Nigeria’s most successful AI chatbot.
The Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI) industry is undergoing a dramatic digital transformation that has led the way with new FinTech & InsurTech services. One global trend in this area is the deployment of AI-powered chatbots to modernise the customer experience and remove friction from everyday banking. Statistics have show that AI-powered banking chatbot solutions, or AI virtual assistants, are game changers for the financial industry. Tasks that used to be completed by talking to a human in a branch or on the phone now take place in a conversational interface with virtual assistants for automated support, in real-time.
These banking chatbots allow financial institutions to talk to millions of customers at once and proactively alert customers to potential issues or upcoming payments. As the toast of digital banking offers, conversational banking has found its way to the Nigerian financial industry, introduced by Africa’s chief propeller of digital transformation in financial services, UBA.
Leo, UBA’s AI-powered chatbot, which is a cutting-edge technology for conversational banking, was introduced in January, 2018 and has since grown to become a custom-fitted, personlised virtual bank teller and customer service officer to over 5million UBA customers across 20 African countries.
According to a research by Freelanews team, this solution breaks language barriers and removes human inadequacies from the banking experience of these UBA customers beside the unusual benefit of bringing banking services to the convenience of major social media platform.
With Leo, customers can make funds transfer, check balances, buy airtime and data, send bank statements within their Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Apple Chat, etc. It bridges the gap between convenience and the personal touch on customers’ preferred channels.
Leo chatbot is effortlessly enhancing the digital customer experience in banking and also achieving a range of other benefits like:
- 24×7 availability – Customers do not have to wait for a response to their query. Leo stays available round the clock to handle the common financial queries asked by the customers.
- High-quality service – With the help of digital engagement tools, Leo identifies error faster and provides an effective solution. It reduces the number of touchpoints and improves first contact resolution.
- Proactive engagement – Reaching out to customers proactively helps them to get an immediate solution when they are looking for it. This improves customer satisfaction.
Leo is a solution that is built from the customer’s standpoint, and thus enjoy consistent improvement, backed by ‘customer-centric’ company culture, innovation and the drive of the UBA’s Group Managing Director, Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu, fondly called TOE, for big investment in technology-enabled solutions to excellent service delivery.
It is therefore no news that Leo got a big upgrade, new look and more capabilities.
Beyond bug fixes, security patches to further reinforce its already rigid cybersecurity measures, Leo, most importantly, is now made available to customers on Instagram and Google Business Chat. Thanks to this, Nigeria’s 9.05million Instagram users can now shop for their items on Instagram and make payment directly on Instagram or transfer searching for an item on Google.
Further upgrade is the evolution of the Leo character into animated 3D to make customer’s interaction feel more realistic. For Leo’s fan base its world of possibility is fondly referred to as Leoverse. This is a concept that flies well with the future of the cyberspace that is tending towards more abstractions and automation. Like Metaverse and future innovations, UBA’s LEO is systemically designed to ride on the trends of the digital age.
With Leoverse encompassing Instagram, UBA has once again led the industry in providing critical solution to Nigeria’s digital economy. Leo on Instagram is a very important development in Nigeria’s social commerce space, which is the fastest growing sub set of Nigeria’s $13billion per anum e-commerce industry, providing a source of income to thousands of Nigerian households.
A lot of individuals use Instagram as a 24/7 storefront and available payment solutions are yet to effectively address the peculiarities of this fledgling industry. Leo on Instagram comes in with an on-platform payment technology to build trust and enhance turn around times for merchants, this is also well spiced with convenience for buyers.
Since his creation in 2018, Leo has exemplified this goal.
“His availability on WhatsApp, Facebook, Apple Business Chat and now launching on Instagram & Google Business Chat, presents opportunities to serve customers 360 degrees regardless of age and behavioural demographics,” Elumelu was caught saying.
The new and improved capabilities of the innovative AI chatbot, available on choice social platforms, will include bills payment, data buying, fund transfer, account opening and budgeting, which includes having a savings plan and spend limit.
Others include linking and funding of prepaid card, access to mini and full account statement views, balance enquiry, linking of new account and easy forwarding of bank statement to embassies, other banks and microfinance for easy access to loans and other services.
In Leoverse, you can also tell the weather, book flight, live chat, locate nearest ATM or UBA branches. And paying premium to customer feedback, UBA ensures Leo’s world has a provision for a working and responsive complaint module; it logs and track complaints.
Gunning to be a leading futuristic banking platform in Africa and the world, UBA, while tapping into the new universal virtual world, ensures that traditional banking services are also incorporated in Leo. These include the ability of customers to request, stop, confirm cheque, block card and free account without stepping out of your comfort zone.
If the new look Leo doesn’t reinforce United Bank for Africa as the preferred African global bank, then what else would?
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
