Consumers aren't loving their credit card companies' chatbots and automated phone options, a new J.D. Power survey found, highlighting a challenge for the industry as it looks to cut costs.
Customer ratings for credit card companies'
Customers frequently cited frustrations that automated tools "can't handle anything other than very basic activities or requests," said John Cabell, managing director of payments intelligence at J.D. Power.
Dissatisfaction was much more prevalent in cases where customers had problems with their account, rather than just a question they were hoping to clear up.
"We haven't gotten to the point yet where automation … can solve our problems in an effective and satisfying way," Cabell said in an interview.
The finding follows years' worth of efforts among banks to find more cost-effective ways of serving customers, including shifting customers away from live human support and toward more innovative ways of handling their issues.
The boom in artificial intelligence could accelerate that push, though a recent survey from American Banker's parent company Arizent found that
The Biden administration is taking notice of the rise in chatbots and other automated customer service functions. On Monday, the White House launched a
"While chatbots can be useful for answering basic questions, they often have limited ability to solve more complex problems and disputes," the White House said in its announcement. "Instead, chatbots frequently provide inaccurate information and give the runaround to customers seeking a real person."
There is plenty of promise in chatbots' ability to help customers, but the "proof is in the pudding," said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate. Sometimes there's "no substitute for good phone service," he added, pointing to Discover Financial Services'
Capital One Financial, which has
American Express, which caters to a more affluent clientele, also focuses on offering customers live phone support, Rossman said. The card issuer got the top ranking in J.D. Power's annual U.S. credit card satisfaction survey, with a score of 634. Discover was second with 629, while Capital One took third at 620. Chase and Bank of America were close behind.
Overall satisfaction among cardholders fell from 612 last year to 610, but customer responses were highly dependent on whether they paid off their balances from month to month.
Those who did not carry revolving debt had a slightly improved perception of their card companies, with satisfaction rising 2 points. But satisfaction fell 5 points among those who do carry balances from month to month, and their score of 580 is sharply lower than the 641 score among those without debt.
"The customer base has really become bifurcated into one subset that is feeling squeezed by economic pressures and one that is not," Cabell said in a news release. "Card issuers need to be able to offer options that resonate and deliver value for both segments."
