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Automate multilingual CX in 5 steps ⟶
Automate multilingual CX in 5 steps
5
min read
Proto’s AI Customer Experience (AICX) solutions can automate customer service across WhatsApp, making digital banking more scalable and accessible for customers in Africa. Read our guide to learn about why and how to use WhatsApp for digital banking, and how Proto can help.
With over 2 billion users around the world, WhatsApp’s ubiquity makes it one of the best channels for mobile banking. That is particularly true in Africa where WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging channels, with a strong potential to make banking more accessible and increase financial inclusion.
However, it is difficult to scale financial services when relying on live agents – and high cost-to-income ratios are a growing concern for Africa’s banks. Automation is a good solution, but many common WhatsApp chatbot providers don’t offer automation in local languages.
Proto’s AICX solution aims to solve this problem with chatbots capable of automating WhatsApp messages in local languages such as Swahili, Kinyarwanda and Twi. Digital banks can also use Proto chatbots to automate messaging on channels such as Africa’s Talking, SMS, and webchat.
There are several advantages to WhatsApp for banking, including:
However, while WhatsApp has many advantages, scaling mobile banking over WhatsApp is costly when banks rely on live agents to handle messaging volume.
Proto chatbots are trained with localised and industry-specific language data for finance, so banks can automate communication in local languages across WhatsApp more easily. This also reduces the cost of customer service, improves wait times, and enables 24/7 support for services such as:
When customers send your business a message, you have up to 24 hours to respond – after the 24-hour period is up, you will no longer have access to the chat. This is an additional reason why chatbots for WhatsApp can be beneficial: they provide instant responses within the 24-hour window, making it much more likely that no query will go unanswered.
However, WhatsApp allows business users to send proactive messages after the 24-hour window, provided that:
In order to take advantage of this feature, you can create templates and submit them to WhatsApp. It takes up to 48 hours to have them approved, but afterwards you can use them to send proactive messages in three different categories:
WhatsApp templates can also include parameters to personalize messages based on the customer and their device location. However, it’s important to follow the template guidelines to ensure that your template is approved by WhatsApp, including their rules about the placement of variables.
Banks can start using Proto for WhatsApp using the following steps:
For a full list of supported channels, take a look at our channels page.
Explore how Proto can help CX teams scale live and automated service over WhatsApp with a solution puts data security, regulatory alignment, and customer safety first.