How Capital One uses data and AI to improve customer experience

These days, transformative customer experience is table stakes, and high-quality, actionable data and machine learning are the foundation of products and services that work. On day two of VB Transform 2022, Molly Parr, VP of Product and Digital Customer Experience at Capital One, spoke with Sharon Goldman, Managing Editor and Managing Editor of VB, about how the company responds to this request.

"We have a dual purpose, which is to delight our customers with seamless, intelligent, and intuitive experiences, but also, because we do it at an enterprise level, we always try to build at scale and with automation, to ensure that the things we build can truly be deployed at Capital One scale,” Parr said.

The company has a history of AI innovation, Parr said. Launched in 2017, the gender-neutral chatbot Eno (“one” spelled backwards) was the first natural language SMS chatbot from a US bank. And while it built its own natural language processing and analysis products and tools in-house, it was also the first US bank in the cloud. Late last year, Parr's team launched a personalized feed, developed to deliver personalized and relevant content, powered by machine learning models that constantly learn who the customer is, what they need. and how to answer it.

Their biggest challenge is data, she says: finding it, defining it, and managing it to make sure it matches the real customer experience. This requires a team that uses data to conceptualize what a great customer experience looks like and also has the expertise to manage data plumbing and data definitions. Context switching can be very difficult, she explained, as many people are only good at taking on the business challenge, but struggle with entering the data, and vice versa.

"It's a challenge for data, but it's also a challenge for people," she said. "Creating a place where it's easier, because of the data structures, to not make it seem like these things are actually two disparate mental models and mindsets, and to be able to think about them as one, is the most important thing we can do to pick up speed.”

Defying all predictions, COVID continues to shake the world and the challenges are a moving target. But accelerating digital adoption remains a bright spot for many industries, including the financial services industry. That's why it's become so crucial to deliver seamless and intelligent customer experiences.

"One of the key things we're seeing is that we're now in a state where the things that help you with the day-to-day management of your financial services accounts and how you interact with us as a brand are expected table stakes," she said. "We're lucky to be sitting in the anticipation of an award-winning mobile app. But we are all expected to be able to perform basic maintenance tasks flawlessly and build on them. I should be able to both do things on table stakes and improve and innovate. »

What it looks like for business is a world where your basic financial needs can be predicted and managed so easily that it frees up brain space to actually improve your financial life with all the education and training. infotainment that Capital One can offer - if you're interested. Each experience is, of course, personalized using research and customer testing.

"It's a really exciting time to get to where we have such mature technology, especially in this area, and to think about how we're amplifying that across all experiences to infuse personalization and relevance everywhere," Parr said. "That, coupled with where we are in our transformation journey - it's one thing to innovate, but it's another to do it at scale. I think all of us in this room will be still somewhere in this transformative journey. We're never done."

Learn about the innovative ways Capital One uses data to create personalized and relevant customer experiences and follow all Transform sessions by registering for a free virtual pass here.