During the past year, more than 150 thousand users have registered to the digital area of Widiba and contributed with their ideas to a new way of banking. The contributions have been rated by other users and some ideas have been adopted as services. For example, one of the selected ideas allows customers to choose their own account number. This level of customization can make creating a bank account or carrying out a transaction different to customer’s normal experience of online banking. Therefore, with the same spirit of innovation, Widiba wanted to offer its customers an intelligent virtual assistant, available 24 hours a day that could assist customers and resolve any queries.

Widiba chose Artificial Solutions’ Teneo platform for its completeness and flexibility. Using its specialist NLI banking domain app already built on the Teneo platform, Artificial Solutions was able to quickly build the intelligent virtual assistant, Widdy, who is able to learn and improve over time with the help of the team at Widiba.

"In order to best meet the needs of our customers, it is critical that we listen to them constantly and proactively. In order to achieve this we wanted to create an intelligent online assistant that was easy to update with new knowledge and capabilities, that would deliver a high quality of service, and create a positive customer experience," says Fabio Ferri, Head of Customer Operations at Widiba. “From the beginning it was clear that Artificial Solutions was able to provide the best software platform for the development of this technology with Teneo and its NLI technology. Thanks to Artificial Solutions deep understanding of the financial services industry we have easily created a virtual assistant that can communicate with our clients effortlessly.”

Widdy, is a highly intelligent NLI assistant that is able to not only answer customer queries on a wide range of banking issues, but is also able to assist clients on the actual processes of the Widiba site. For example, Widdy takes the user through all the stages of opening a new account. Should the user suspend this activity and return to it later, Widdy can recognize what steps have already been completed to enable the account to be finalized without wasting time.

In addition to chatting to the customer in a friendly conversational style, Widdy also understands the context of a conversation. For example, if a customer is asking about travellers cheques and then asks about costs, Widdy understands they are still talking about travellers cheques without the customer repeating the information.

“A simple question in financial services can soon turn into a complex dialogue when one considers not only the different aspects, such as a query about a mortgage that may also include questions about life insurance, but also the statutory information that needs to be conveyed as well,” says Lawrence Flynn, CEO of Artificial Solutions. “Using an intelligent NLI assistant that can understand the context of an entire conversation and adapt the response accordingly not only delivers the right information just when the customer wants it, but increases the customer’s confidence in the overall service.”