BMO: Revolutionizing Client Interaction With AI

In an era where digital transformation is key, BMO has emerged as a leader in customer experience innovation, earning acclaim for its groundbreaking initiative. Recently honored with the Outstanding Machine Learning Initiative Award at the Global Retail Banking Innovation Awards, BMO’s journey exemplifies its commitment to “Boldly Grow the Good” and its dedication to establishing itself as a digital-first bank.

The Need for an AI-Driven Solution

A couple of years ago, BMO turned its focus to enhancing customer engagement and operational efficiency. The efforts they set forth specifically within the Virtual Connect Team, which manages client calls, were going to be a complex task, and there was only one player equipped for the job at hand — AI. 

BMO called up AI to analyze all interactions between agents and customers, identifying opportunities for enhanced customer communication. Collaborating across departments, analytics and business experts at BMO chose Dataiku to drive a tailored, AI-based solution that has completely revolutionized the Virtual Connect Team’s reality. 

Dataiku, the Everyday AI platform for data and domain experts alike, fully empowered BMO’s experts to unlock the maximum potential of AI in the years since this use case began, promising lasting business value for years to come.

AI is core to our bank strategy and at use across our business driving tangible outcomes every day.
– Sandip Sahota, Enterprise Chief Data and Analytics Officer, BMO

Transforming the Virtual Connect Team With AI

The AI integration for the Virtual Connect Team, which manages customer relations directly, uses linguistic patterns and natural language processing (NLP) to examine customer call transcripts. This creates a better, faster method for identifying pain points and ensuring compliance with front agent requirements.

The solution, implemented across all major products and services, facilitates call categorization as well as driver identification. It ensures compliance by monitoring agent disclosures and client consent, simplifying processes for both customers and employees. It’s a win-win. 

Not only does the solution help provide more efficient processes, but it does so in a reliable way. The hybrid model of the solution ensures precise labeling and customization by combining rule-based and supervised NLP, maintaining transparency and interpretability. Plus, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) enhances semantic understanding, achieving impressive accuracy levels of 70-90% in call categorization.

Suddenly you’re catching the things that you wouldn’t have caught before, and you can also provide very targeted feedback. – Eric Morrow, Managing Director, Data Science & AI, DnA at BMO Financial Group

Results That Speak for Themselves 

In summary, this Virtual Connect Team AI transformation use case resulted in the migration of nearly 300,000 calls annually from call centers to digital channels, empowering customers to self-serve and freeing up agent time for personalized financial assistance. 

To elevate customer experience further, BMO utilized NLP technology with Dataiku to analyze agent-customer transcripts, identifying opportunities for improved communication. This blend of AI and human intervention provides managers with insights that were previously untapped, enabling timely validation and follow-up actions for a better client experience than ever before. 

Now analyzing 400 times more calls than manual measures, the automated solution significantly enhances efficiency while ensuring this superior customer experience. The initiative’s impact has resulted in an estimated annual business benefit of CAD 6.5 million and truly exemplifies BMO’s commitment to smart solutions for real financial progress.