A red orb with three white stripes resembling the letter E has been the "face" of
Lately, the bank has been considering a refresh.
"We're evolving a lot of her capabilities but hadn't done anything to the design since we launched it in 2018," said Michele Barlow, head of enterprise marketing at BofA.
Banks have grappled with how to brand and position
Experts' answers differ, but those who favor giving bots a persona say it boosts visibility, seems friendlier and encourages adoption.
"You want [branding] to be a proprietary eponym for what you're doing," said Dylan Lerner, senior analyst in digital banking at Javelin Strategy & Research. "You 'Zelle' somebody — it's a verb, an action, not a product but something you do."
Others disagree, citing customer research that a clinical name like "virtual assistant" suffices.
"In our research and co-creation with clients, they preferred a descriptive name over a human-sounding name," said Richard Weeks, head of conversational experience at U.S. Bancorp, who leads the team behind the Minneapolis bank's
Lerner acknowledges that it's hard to back up with data the notion that a bot with catchy branding or personality boosts adoption. But "we have the belief it might," he said. "You want to encourage usage. The right way is to first introduce the bot to them in a friendly way."
From the beginning, Bank of America wanted a name for its virtual assistant that didn't leave people scratching their heads. "Erica," the last five letters of "America," fit the bill. Its symbol is distinctive but a play on the Bank of America logo, whose colors also include red and white.
But the bank wondered what it could do better and conducted consumer research at the beginning of this year to find out. "We took a step back and said, how do we want to think about evolving Erica to come outside of the app and be represented in marketing and advertising in a different way?" Barlow said. "Should Erica be personified?"
The conclusion was no. "We learned right off the bat that clients didn't want Erica to be a human because Erica can deliver from their perspective more than a human could," Barlow said. The research also reinforced the point that Bank of America should be represented in the Erica image to lend it credibility.
But in advertising, Erica fell flat, the research showed. The bank is exploring how to enliven the orb with motion and sound in digital advertising. The refreshed branding is expected to roll out early in 2024.
"We decided since that was an automated channel in the late '70s, how fun would it be to continue Jeanie's legacy?" said Michelle Grimm, senior director of conversational artificial intelligence at the $206 billion-asset company. While many customers won't draw the connection, "I think the ones in Cincinnati will," Grimm said. Plus, anyone who asks Jeanie about "her" name will learn the history.
When the bank started redesigning Jeanie's capabilities in 2022, "we intentionally talked about her personality," Grimm said. "We decided when customers are coming to the messaging portion of the app or online, it's because they have a problem." That meant doing away with the cheekiness in earlier iterations and positioning Jeanie as a helpful, to-the-point contact center agent.
Some financial institutions choose more overt plays on the bank name.
MyKey from
A name that played off "Key" wasn't a requirement. But after testing options with customers and the general population in 2021, MyKey rose to the top.
MyKey is meant to be a touch playful, yet in keeping with the tone of live agents. Contact center agents, designers and engineers underwent the same training program to assure consistent customer service. Recently, the company has promoted MyKey on social media, in branches, on its ATMs and in ads on its mobile app.
Regions Financial in Birmingham, Alabama, gave its virtual assistant a human name, Reggie, and a cartoon-like face, in the form of an impish grin on a curvy green triangle.
But "we don't think of Reggie as the face of Regions," said Chris Brasher, modernization and transformation executive at the $155 billion-asset company. "It's a tool that helps us expand our customer's ability to interact with us."
Like some of its peers, Regions ran names by customers to see which ones resonated. Reggie sounds like the company's name, and the character's appearance was meant to evoke the green triangle in the corporate logo.
Other financial institutions prefer to be more literal.
U.S. Bank, the banking unit of the $681 billion-asset U.S. Bancorp, christened its bot Smart Assistant for several reasons. "We wanted to ensure the name reflected and reinforced our brand promise," Weeks wrote in an email in response to questions. "U.S. Bank Smart Assistant is a fitting description of what we provide our clients — smart assistance they can trust." The name easily carried over to the Spanish version, Asistente Inteligente de U.S. Bank. Most importantly to company officials, the choice was approved by customers.
Truist Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina, also took the lead from its customers for its
The name "tested better on many fronts versus personifying with a gender-specific name," Sherry Graziano, head of digital banking and care centers at the $555 billion-asset Truist, explained in an email. "'Assist' implies care, and our ability to assist through technology or touch to build trusted client relationships."
Huntington Bancshares in Columbus, Ohio, did not name its bot.
"When we launched our virtual assistant in 2019, we were intentional about not branding or humanizing it, because we feel our people are the true extension of our brand," the $188 billion-asset company said in an email. "As we continue to evolve this functionally, we're looking to bring more sophistication to how it finds and presents information. We are open to using a more playful name in the future."
Digital-assistant makers themselves are torn.
The conversational AI provider Kasisto, whose clients include JPMorgan Chase, TD Bank Group,
"Customers prefer to interact with something that is more relatable than a robot," said Lindsay Soergel, chief product and customer experience officer at Kasisto. One client told her that the company observed higher conversion rates in digital ads where the persona of the digital assistant was embedded, compared with some other forms of digital marketing without it. Moreover, a personality may help contact center employees and branch personnel embrace the digital assistant as another "colleague."
"It doesn't start and stop with giving [a bot] a name and personality to make [employees] more amenable to it, but there is something to that," said Soergel. "There is something relatable about this little branded character that gets people interested."
Steven Poling, director of customer success at the conversational AI platform Clinc, is more neutral. Clinc's clients range from U.S. Bank with its Smart Assistant to
"There doesn't seem to be one correct answer," he said.
The right answer seems to be asking bank customers for their preference.
"There is not a precise way to create a personality," Soergel said. "It's about knowing your customer base, understanding what the segments are and what messages you are trying to convey."
