Banco Santander unlocks scalability and efficiency in customer service
In Brazil, the bank strengthened its customer service by implementing Sprinklr’s AI-driven solution – improving efficiency, customer satisfaction and overall operational effectiveness.
Banking customers are no different from any other consumer: they crave choice. They want automated answers to easy questions, like how to open a bank account, and human guidance when making tough decisions like financing a home.
Satisfying these diverse needs requires financial institutions to offer a broad spectrum of customer care options, so clients can bank when and where it is most convenient, whether at a branch, from their living room or in an airport lounge.
Banco Santander Brasil, the country’s fifth-largest bank, has been delivering options like mobile, online, remote and in-person solutions to our customers for years. Mixing and matching so many options requires balancing personnel and resources and fine-tuning communications channels and strategies. We’ve had great success, but even the most carefully executed customer service programs can hit a wall when faced with unprecedented demand.
The customer service team’s workload dropped by more than 14% due to the increased efficiency and use of Sprinklr."
Rapidly changing needs required more agility
During the pandemic, our volume of online customer inquiries ballooned, while our employee numbers stayed the same. We had been making the best of aging internal systems and processes, but the situation frustrated our agents and customers.
As we emerged from the pandemic and activity remained high, we realized we had to address the situation to avoid suboptimal customer experiences. It wasn’t enough to grow our team — we also needed to upgrade our tools to improve the user experience.
As Santander Brasil’s Senior Manager of Social Media Customer Service, I thought the best way forward would be to empower customers to self-serve simple issues quickly and efficiently. Our team’s vision was to develop a digital experience featuring automated responses that closely mimicked human interaction. At the same time, we knew it was critical to identify the moments when it was best to hand off customer queries to live agents. Doing both would maximize our internal human resources and provide more personalized service.
AI that helps us get to the heart of the matter
We chose Sprinklr chatbot software for a number of reasons:
- Flexibility. The platform allows us to create a menu of self-serve questions for several products and services simultaneously, giving our customers immediate access to the information they need without having to navigate through page after page of options.
- An intuitive user experience. Sprinklr has an easy-to-use interface, including a single button that allows mobile users to easily access our virtual assistant on smartphones and tablets. Its dynamic service menu allows customers to quickly find answers to a wide variety of questions.
- Conversational AI. This technology enables us to humanize automated responses and mirrors Santander Brasil’s voice, providing a consistent customer experience. It also means our customers aren’t subject to an anonymous FAQ but are part of an interactive discussion that reflects our values and gets to the heart of their concerns faster.
The Sprinklr platform was a great fit that aligned with our goal of providing Santander customers the help they needed as quickly as possible, either through AI assistance or human intervention.
How we set it up
Deploying Sprinklr required some research. We started by building a self-serve menu around the most sought-after products and services. Next, we analyzed our customers’ most frequent questions and determined the queries we could automate without having to call on our agents. Then, we composed easy-to-understand answers using conversational language that delivered information without overwhelming Santander customers with a screen full of technical jargon.
Our team received guidance throughout the deployment from the Sprinklr team, who ensured we followed best practices to optimize our chatbot. Post-deployment, Sprinklr offers ongoing support through a customer success team that helps users make the most of its platforms. We felt confident knowing that our solution would evolve and scale as we — and our customers — evolved.
Our Sprinklr chatbot offers a modern and efficient user experience that highlights our commitment to customer service.”
Cashing in on our hard work
We evolved fairly fast and, in some ways, our initial Sprinklr deployment was a trial. We started with our most popular products and services, curated our selection and modified our content. Although we strove for clarity and brevity from the start, we realized we could further simplify and shorten our answers, making them more direct and streamlining the flow and structure of our automated options.
Our continued iterations paid off, and our customers can now resolve many of their issues independently. The retention rate of interactions resolved directly through the automated menu increased from 3% to 6%, and our first response SLA dropped by about 20%. Because customers can quickly address simple questions or concerns without having to wait on our agents, we’ve had fewer requests for our customer care team. The customer service team’s workload dropped by more than 14% due to the increased efficiency and use of Sprinklr.
These results are about more than AI and automation. Increasing our customers’ self-sufficiency reduces frustration and demonstrates that we can provide what they need in the way that they want – and they’re happier because of it. With fewer interactions routed to agents and better preparation for handling complex cases, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) for agent-assisted cases increased by approximately 35%, reflecting our customers’ increased satisfaction with the agility, clarity and personalization of the service.
Our success has attracted attention across the organization, including from our C-suite. My team was recognized internally with the 2024 Award for Outstanding Service and Excellence in Customer Care.
Enchanting our customers, one interaction at a time
We are now providing intuitive, one-click answers to common questions and connecting customers with live agent help at the touch of a button. Our Sprinklr chatbot offers a modern and efficient user experience that highlights our commitment to customer service. It helps us deliver innovative products and services to more people while optimizing our human and technical resources.
The Brazilian banking industry is highly competitive. With more than 200 million citizens, we are the largest financial services market in Latin America, and the potential rewards are staggering. To stand out, Santander Brasil must enchant our customers, going beyond transactional services to deliver memorable, humanized experiences. Sprinklr is enabling us to meet this challenge.
