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<\/p>\nWestpac NZ is the first major company in New Zealand to introduce a Microsoft platform with built-in AI to help employees have better conversations with customers and reduce contact centre wait times.<\/p>\n
Last week, Westpac began rolling out the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform. When a customer calls the bank, the AI component of CCaaS will support the customer service representative by automatically providing the customer\u2019s relevant banking profile as well as information about any products they might ask about in real time.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes as new research from the bank shows general support for AI being used to improve banking services.<\/p>\n
In a nationally-representative survey of 529 people, conducted by research platform Ideally, 65% of respondents said they were comfortable or neutral about the idea of their bank using AI to help contact centre employees provide quicker responses to their questions (45% comfortable; 20% neutral), while 70% were comfortable or neutral about AI being used to help detect fraud and scams (49% comfortable; 21% neutral).<\/p>\n
Russell Jones, Westpac NZ Chief Information Officer, says introducing the new technology is a significant step.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really excited to be the first bank in New Zealand, as well as one of the first in the world, to introduce CCaaS,\u201d Mr Jones says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also really pleased to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Microsoft developers from across the world on the implementation of CCaaS in our business, meaning it\u2019s been configured specifically for Westpac\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect to deploy the product to all our contact centres by August, meaning configuration, delivery, testing and full deployment will have been completed within the space of one year.<\/p>\n
The Westpac research showed 66% of respondents were themselves already using AI programmes \u2013 53% in their personal lives and 30% at work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Jones says being able to use AI to help employees deliver faster, more informed results for customers is a win win.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur people are our greatest competitive advantage \u2013 we want to use AI to support them to be their best.<\/p>\n
\u201cPreviously, they might have needed to run numerous searches in our system to access details of the various products a customer might be interested in, then overlay that with different views of a customer\u2019s profile.<\/p>\n
\u201cA customer who\u2019s banked with us for a long time could have a whole range of products, all with different terms and conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing CCaaS means an employee can now access accurate, relevant information almost instantaneously, with the platform delivering additional product information as those topics arise in the conversation. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSecurity and privacy are obviously critical in everything we do and as with any information a customer shares with us, CCaaS data is secure and confidential.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Duncan Taylor, General Manager Financial Services Industry for Microsoft Australia New Zealand, says Microsoft is pleased to be partnering with Westpac on this initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cWestpac is the first bank in New Zealand, as well as one of the first financial institutions in the world, to launch CCaaS, and we\u2019re really excited to be working with them,\u201d Mr Taylor says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverseas, CCaaS is being successfully used by big businesses with huge customer bases, such as EasyJet and Microsoft itself. We\u2019re seeing this result in significantly lower case resolution time and even reduce turnover of customer service reps thanks to giving them better experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBanking is obviously a very complex industry, so there\u2019s considerable scope for CCaaS to add value to Westpac\u2019s employees and customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Jones says introducing CCaaS is one more step in the bank\u2019s digital journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past few years, our teams have completely transformed our tech infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs well as designing future-proof architecture, we\u2019ve completely overhauled our network and computer platforms, refreshed our mainframe and established new data centres.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntroducing CCaaS is the latest milestone in the work we\u2019re doing to modernise banking and deliver for our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Westpac NZ is the first major company in New Zealand to introduce a Microsoft platform with built-in AI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,51521,10351,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-608955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-customers","14":"tag-press-releases","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}