Powered by messaging customer service platform Sparkcentral and omnichannel messaging specialists Smooch, the new feature allows Argenta customers to engage in a continuous conversation thread - much like they would using WhatsApp with their friends - with trained Argenta staff at any time. Rather than giving their customers an automated bot experience, Argenta intentionally designed the experience to be human-first. Once engaged, customers can get assistance with payments or charges, receive advice on savings or investments, information about the latest products, etc, all within a fully secure environment and without having to leave the app.

With the messaging experience being a single, continuous thread, all previous customer chat history is retained, the conversation never gets abandoned, and customers can start and stop the conversation as they wish, which significantly improves the user experience compared to traditional live chat solutions.

Argenta CIDO Geert Van Hove said of the launch ‘Personal, continuous, messaging is how a significant number of people communicate with friends and family - yet not currently with businesses, which we aim to change and spearhead for our industry. It’s a simple and intuitive way to connect. Argenta’s core values when it comes to our customers are focused very clearly on providing simplicity and accessibility. Giving our customers the ability to engage with real people, the highly trained members of our team support those values completely. Effectively, we’ve embedded a personal teller experience inside every one of our customers’ mobile phones.’

With a clear ‘mobile first’ and now ‘messaging first’ focus, Argenta’s consumer app already handles more customer transactions than any other channel - including via branches and online - especially with its younger client-base.

Enlisting Industry Specialists to Deal with Integration Complexity

Securely facilitating real-time, in-app conversations which contain sensitive financial data is technically challenging and requires a complex integration. For this, Argenta enlisted the expertise of customer service platform Sparkcentral and omnichannel messaging specialists Smooch.

While Smooch's platform allowed Argenta to embed a secure, modern conversation widget into its banking app and securely transmit conversational data in real-time, Sparkcentral technology allows its agents to engage with customers at scale using their agent desktop and Automated Messaging Distribution platform (AMD) that is optimized for continuous, single thread, messaging.

‘We have invested heavily in our digital platforms over the past year as we see significant value in these channels to deliver excellent customer experiences going forward. Part of our innovation strategy is in selecting leading technology partners such as Smooch and Sparkcentral, able to expertly assist us in delivering seamless and personalized customer experiences at scale.’ Geert Van Hove added.