Over 69% of financial services businesses are considering automated chatbots to enhance their customer service propositions, according to digital solutions firm Dock9.

The agency says that during the Covid-19 pandemic, a wide variety of businesses and organisations across different industries have demonstrated the value of utilising chatbots to manage unprecedented customer enquiry volumes.

Dock9 is an advocate of the increased adoption of chatbots within the banking, mortgage and insurance sectors, so recently conducted research to assess the current or future adoption of automated/AI chatbots from such firms.

The survey was issued during the same week that Dock9 announced its forthcoming webinar on 22 May, which seeks to discuss not only what is a chatbot but also to help businesses assess whether their firm needs one and then outline the steps needed to build such a function.

Mark Lusted, Dock9’s managing director, said: “Recent announcements from both Nationwide Building Society and TSB have shown the value of chatbots to manage unprecedented customer enquiry volumes and allow customer service teams to focus on enquiries and customers that require more handholding or are potentially vulnerable.

“During our Dock9 Tech Talks podcast, we have discussed chatbots at length with our interviewees and it seemed timely to host a webinar on this topic too to help inform those wishing to know more about this evolving technology. None of us has a crystal ball, but our survey shows that using chatbots to build contingency within customer service propositions will be a priority across financial services once we have managed and assessed the immediate and medium term impacts of the pandemic on the industry.”