Objectives

DBS Taiwan launched iChatBot for its personal banking customers in 2019. The chatbot was strategically placed within DBS Taiwan’s business account on LINE. The social media app has a 98% penetration rate in Taiwan, with 83% of businesses using LINE as a medium to connect with customers.

Within the account, we embedded a DBS-designed iChatBot, which provides answers to FAQs, receive the latest banking updates, and complete their banking tasks natively via iChatBot.

During the pandemic, COVID-19 safety restrictions in Taiwan limited the physical activities of citizens. This greatly confined their access to physical services, such as retrieving credit card statements, and cancellations of credit card statements, which could previously only be done at branches. This sparked us to introduce a series of new functions via iChatBot.

The main goal of iChatBot is to help customers complete their jobs to be done, while alleviating the load of DBS Taiwan’s customer service staff, who can focus on solving more complex issues that require verbal assistance. The usage rate of iChatBot rose exponentially during COVID-19 due to the emergence of a zero-touch lifestyle and decreased physical interaction.

Strategy and Execution

To enhance our customer’s experience, and continually ensure a seamless customer journey despite the pandemic and reduced physical interactions, DBS Taiwan launched five new initiatives between 2021 and 2022 to cater to the customer needs.

Developments and deployments done fully in-house. The five initiatives are as follows:

1. Government Quintuple Economy Stimulus Voucher Programme

• Instant linkage of government stimulus vouchers to citizens’ and residents’ accounts
• Linking of vouchers for families, with instant updates on amount that can be / has been redeemed
• Providing information of credit cards that cater to the different needs of customers, as businesses provided more rebates if customers used credit cards to redeem the stimulus vouchers
• Ability to sign up for a credit card, and linking the credit card with the stimulus vouchers

2. COVID-19 relief programmes for citizens

• Offering up-to-date information about relief programmes available at DBS Taiwan, along with clear steps for application

3. Credit card and CASA eStatement application/ cancellation

• Application for eStatements, which also encourages citizens to go paperless and lead a sustainable life

4. Spending by Instalments (SBI) Service

• Digitally assisting customers who had issues with their instalment plans, including transactions and instalment statements

5. Voucher Performance Guarantee 

• Assisting customers to check the validity of vouchers released by cooperative firms through digital devices

DBS Taiwan employed two management activities to ensure the iChatBot’s success, and to overcome the challenges.

1. Adoption of Agile methodology for capability building

We regularly engaged business product owners and technology teams to share prototypes and key findings. This enabled us to receive early feedback, pivot where necessary, iterate our frameworks, and conduct experiments to drive digital adoption.

2. Cross-functional digital servicing squad

The projects were done in collaboration with six teams: data analytics, call centre, customer experience, technology, operations, and product. We collaborated closely with data scientists across business analytics and data teams. They significantly boosted the team’s analytics skillsets and resulted us being able to implement better practices for our operation models, further emphasising a data-driven culture within DBS Taiwan. We engaged internal teams with specialised knowledge in cloud computing. With their support, we were able to quickly overcome the steep learning curve. There were also early engagements with legal and compliance teams to identify and resolve key issues relating to the usage of sensitive customer information. This enabled us to receive the required approvals in time.

Results

With the introduction of the five initiatives, DBS Taiwan saw an increase of iChatBot users grow to 250,000, and achieved the following results:

1. Government Quintuple Economy Stimulus Voucher Programme

• Customers could redeem and link the vouchers to their accounts in just 10 seconds, leading to a 91% digital adoption rate
• DBS Taiwan received nearly 120,000 credit card applications
• DBS Taiwan acquired roughly 29,000 new customers

2. COVID-19 relief programmes for citizens

• Customers could retrieve information on COVID-19 relief programmes without having to call DBS Taiwan’s Customer Centre.

3. Credit card and CASA eStatement application/cancellation

• From September 2021 to December 2021, call volumes regarding credit card eStatement inquiries reduced by 17% month-on-month

4. SBI Service

• Adoption rate reached 57%.

5. Voucher Performance Guarantee 

• Confirmed the validity period of vouchers to avoid scenarios where vouchers may have expired.

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