A robot named Anna will answer clients’ questions about the location of the bank’s branches and ATMs with the self-cash collection function. In the future Anna will provide other useful information, for example, about payment statuses, account balances and writs of execution.

Enquiries that require human employee participation are also processed using robot-based technology in the form of a cognitive virtual assistant. The robot analyses the conversation between the operator and the client and automatically provides the former with additional information to help assist the client.

The pilot project saw an increase of client service speed in specific areas by 50%. Now clients spend an average of 3.5 minutes on the phone to the corporate client contract centre.

“We use artificial intelligence to carry out a diverse range of tasks. One of these is reducing the time it takes to service our clients by increasing the quality and convenience of service through robotising the contact centre,” commented Senior Vice President and Head of Sberbank’s Corporate Business Block Anatoly Popov. “Sberbank’s goals include significantly reducing the average time of servicing, increasing the share of first call resolutions, and robotising the system for processing all simple client enquiries in the next two years.

Around 40% of enquiries made to Sberbank’s corporate client contact centre involve information requests. Every day the centre’s operators process around 20,000 calls. Around two million major, medium-sized and small businesses account for Sberbank’s corporate clients.