Pittsburgh-based F.N.B. Corp.'s most recent investor presentation includes data on mobile and online banking,
Though the presentation provided no details on incoming phone calls, F.N.B.'s customer contact center is by no means a red-headed stepchild. CEO Vincent Delie called the operation an "integral part of our strategy moving forward," promising continued investment in training and technology, including artificial intelligence, or AI.
"Our customers expect best-in-class efficiency and wait times," Delie said in a statement.
To that end, the $48 billion-asset F.N.B. is planning an initiative to put contact center representatives on the same system that branch employees use. "This will create one seamless view of customer information and ensure that we provide a consistent experience no matter where or how a customer engages with our teams," Justin Kurth, F.N.B.'s executive director of enterprise banking operations, said in the same statement.
Bank customers seem broadly satisfied with the service they receive from contact centers. Call center satisfaction rose 2 points to 81 between 2023 and 2024, according to a February 2024 study by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. ACSI measures consumer sentiments on a 100-point scale.
Even so, banks show no inclination to stand still. A number have announced strategic investments aimed at boosting contact center productivity. In March, for instance, Memphis-based First Horizon Corp. disclosed it had
The $32.2 billion-asset Fulton Financial in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recently invested in an AI solution that listens to contact center calls then summarizes them, a task agents formerly handled. "Our customer care agent can move on to the next call without having to spend three to five minutes typing things up," Fulton's Contact Center Director Russell Trezise said. "That's been a huge improvement to our productivity."
Brave new world
Overall contact center employment, including the financial services industry, currently totals 2.95 million. It's expected to decline 3% over the next five years, according to an August 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics report. While one might infer the projected employment dip is tied to AI's impact and destined to continue ad infinitum, the goal of most AI solutions is to empower agents, not replace them, said David Singer, Verint's global vice president, global go-to-market strategy.
"A bot is an AI model trained on data, embedded in the workflow to perform a task," Singer said in an interview. "If I'm a call center agent [and] I've got a staff of bots sitting behind me, I'm not doing all the work myself. I've got a team."
Agents can use the help.
As AI and other efficiency tools have revolutionized the contact center space, routine inquiries, which once comprised a significant proportion of calls, have almost disappeared. "Thirty years ago, 25 years ago, 20 years ago, your calls were like, what's my balance, what's wrong with my credit card, can I order more checks," Singer, who has spent the past 27 years consulting in the contact center space, said.
"What gets to agents today is more and more complex," Singer added.
That empathy quotient
AI's usefulness, to be sure, extends far beyond dealing with routine queries. It can, among other things, adjudicate disputes, combat fraud and provide answers to more difficult questions. The pace of technological change, moreover, is fast and getting faster, Singer said. "I've never seen a velocity of technical acceleration like this. It's insanity."
Yet far from threatening to make human agents obsolete, AI's growing versatility gives them expanded leeway to deploy the most effective weapon in their arsenals, their humanity, Singer and other experts said. "The agent can focus on what makes humans unique, what they're good at," Singer said. "Being present, expressing empathy, building connection."
Indeed, those interpersonal skills, so often put to work in high-pressure situations, deliver enormous value, Trezise, who has led Fulton's 100-person call center since April 2019, said in an interview. "Obviously, there's a soft-skill element to that in terms of being more focused on empathy, being more focused on listening carefully to what the customer's concern is and making sure they know they've come to the right place, that we can help them in the vast majority of cases."
"AI can streamline chaos and fuel growth, but it can never truly replicate human interaction," Scott Stavretis, CEO at Acquire BPO in Melbourne, Australia, said in a statement to American Banker. "The heart of customer service will always be human. Banks that recognize this balance will not only achieve operational efficiency but also foster trust, loyalty, and meaningful relationships with their customers, setting themselves apart in an increasingly automated world."
The AI-driven shift in agents' roles has changed the way the $32.2 billion-asset Fulton recruits. "Previously, where maybe we were looking for people just with contact center or banking experience, of late — very much so in the last two or three years — we're looking for people with in-depth customer-relationship experience," Trezise said. "People who have shown they can be empathetic even when under pressure, that have the confidence to talk through challenges with the customer and hopefully send them away resolved and happier."
"If you've got that innate skill, then you're going to do well, with training on banking regulations, banking procedures and all of those things," Trezise said. "That's what we're primarily looking for. It's that empathy quotient."
Trezise's own career serves as an example of the kind of industry-agnostic skillsets Fulton looks for. Like Singer, Trezise has spent most of his career in and around contact centers, but in addition to banking, Trezise has worked long stretches in the airline and healthcare industries. "I'm a huge customer-service person," Trezise said. "I'm passionate about delivering the right experience for customers. The challenge is the same whatever industry you're in."
"The core skill to be an agent is less and less to be a great process person, it's to be a great feeling connector…It's a pivot to the ideal sort of the ideal hiring profile," Singer said.
Listening in
Trezise said the 20 years he spent at British Airways helped set him up for success as a contact center manager and shaped the way he views his team's mission. "There are always, always big operational challenges within the airline industry," Trezise said. "You deal with awful situations — thankfully very rarely — around kind of operational, industrial disruptions. God forbid, you have crashes. I've been in that role when a lot of those things happened, including 9/11. It taught me a great deal about listening very clearly to the customer and being patient to work through their stresses and strains."
Issues bank contact center agents deal with may not be as weighty on a macro level, but they're critical to the customers and to the bank's relationship, Singer said. "There's some level of emotional and financial importance where you want to talk to a human," Singer said. "They call in because something concerning is going on. Agents need to be able to deal with all of that emotion."
At Fulton, Trezise said he emphasizes listening and problem solving over speed. "My experience, and what I've conveyed and educated my team on is that listening [is crucial]. Let's not rush these customers who may be worried about how to pay their mortgage. We've got the ability to support them and help them. Let's just be patient and work our way through…Even if it takes a little longer, if we can resolve the vast majority of customer issues and challenges, send them away with a sense of happiness or at least reassurance, we're doing our job."
