Independent Banker - January 2025 - 27

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and they can handle [over] a million
interactions simultaneously. "
What's more, an AI tool can amass a
mindboggling quantity of knowledge.
" Our AI customer-service agent is
learning from more interactions in one
month than a human will have in a
lifetime, " says Tyler.
Chatbot duties vs. banker
responsibilities
The advent of generative AI has
employees across industries feeling
uncertain about their job security, but
Tyler rejects the either/or mentality
that suggests chatbots inevitably mean
less human interaction in banking.
He maintains that both AI and human
bankers have critical roles to play.
For instance, chatbots excel at
responding to simple requests but
can also help customers reach the
right human being fast. " If you call up
and say, 'Hey, I want a million-dollar
mortgage,' then the bank wants to
get you to its million-dollar mortgage
specialist as quickly as possible, and
chatbots can do that, " he says.
Charles Potts, ICBA executive vice
president and chief innovation officer,
takes a more cautious approach. He
urges community bankers to remember
the importance of the relationshiporiented
value proposition they
offer their customers. The last thing
a community bank wants is for a
" We wanted
customers to be able
to self-service 24/7 if
it's a simple question
they need answered. "
-JACKIE VERKUYL,
BAC COMMUNITY BANK
chatbot to disintermediate a bank
and its prized customer, says Potts.
He argues that the best chatbots have
the virtual equivalent of " an eject
button " -an easy-to-find option for
exiting automation and engaging with
a human employee instead.
When $800 million-asset BAC
Community Bank in Stockton, Calif.,
went live with Agent IQ's chatbot
solution in April 2022, it named the
system " Smart ALAC, " an acronym
for " All Access Connection. " From
the very beginning, BAC used Smart
ALAC not as an alternative to humanled
customer service but as a method
to differentiate between authenticated
users who have logged in and
anonymous users when engaging with
the chatbot, explains Jackie Verkuyl,
QUICK STAT
96%
of 200 U.S. and Canadian
financial institutions claimed they
would consider using AI-powered
chatbots within 12 months.
Source: Agent IQ
executive vice president.
" The bank wanted to take some
volume off of our call center ... and
we wanted customers to be able
to self-service 24/7 if it's a simple
question they need answered, " she
says. Verkuyl notes that, as a matter of
course, all BAC's customers can create
a login and select a dedicated personal
banker for one-on-one support, while
non-logged-in users can use the chat
to connect with any available banker.
Javelin Strategy & Research analyst
Kevin Libby advises community
bankers to opt for rules-based
chatbots when responding to customer
questions. He notes that natural
language processing programs capable
of making inferences are terrific for
interpreting customer questions, but
answers provided by a bank should
be carefully scripted to make sure any
guidance is factually correct and not
open to misinterpretation.
Here, Libby cites a recent loss by
Air Canada in a small-claims court
case in which the transportation
giant's chatbot hallucinated an answer
inconsistent with airline policy about
bereavement fares. Remember,
he says, " once a bank has given [a
customer] information in writing, it's
tough to pull back later. "
Is a chatbot worth it?
While chatbots have benefited many
community banks, some small
institutions have remained on the
sidelines-with good reason, according
to Glia's Tyler. " If you're very small
and your interaction volume is very
low, the juice may not be worth the
squeeze, " he says.
Until recently, the clunkiness of
commercial chatbots has also been
a turnoff, says Tyler. He argues the
latest technology is vastly improved:
" We've arrived at an inflection point in
which the next five to 10 years should
be transformational. "
Community bankers themselves are
advocating for a practical approach
for introducing AI into customer
service. " People in the banking world
sometimes get a little bit standoffish
when they hear words like 'chatbot'
or 'AI,' " says CNB's Zellers. " Chatbots
really can be used safely and securely.
My advice is: Try chatbots for a
while, see what works and then grow
whatever works best. "
Elizabeth Judd is a writer in Maryland.
independentbanker.org // 27
http://www.independentbanker.org
Independent Banker - January 2025

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