Reinventing financial services contact centres
How institutions can turn AI into trust
Our new survey of 6560 Australian consumers reveals a gap between outdated perceptions of financial services contact centres and the real benefits that can be delivered by AI-driven operations.
Authors: Cameron Lynch, Michael O’Toole, Ross Lombardo
Co-authors: Hashim Al-Hilli, Michelle Crain, Rogier Vermeulen, Thikshana Heenetigala, Caitlin Martin
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly redefining what contact centres can deliver for businesses and their customers – and financial institutions must keep pace.
Once associated with long hold times and frustrating service experiences, these centres are undergoing a remarkable reinvention. The most forward-looking banks and insurers are transforming customer contact as they deploy AI, digital humans and channel orchestration – with the extra payoff being that they can improve their brands and reputations in the process.
However, our survey of 6560 Australians across a range of age groups, industries and income brackets identifies a tension between customers’ long-held negative perceptions of contact centres and the advantages that modern, AI-driven centres can deliver for financial institutions and customers alike. The challenge for the industry is to address and release this tension.
In the meantime, on the back of improvements in the contact centres of retailers, utilities providers and governments, customers are demanding that their financial services providers lift their games.
As Deloitte Consulting’s Cameron Lynch comments: “The real disruption in
financial services may not just be AI – it’s the customer’s rising expectation
of what ‘good service’ looks like.”
The survey
Our survey notes that consumers’ expectations are rising sharply and, while many financial institutions still rely on outdated systems, the conversation is shifting from customer management to customer connection. The contact centre, once viewed as a cost burden, is emerging as a strategic asset — a place where trust, loyalty and value can be built.
The report combines quantitative findings from the national survey with expert analysis from our AI, change and cognitive-experience specialists. Together, they paint a clear picture: financial contact centres are moving from transactional service to experiential engagement, demanding both technological fluency and human empathy.
Insightful data on contact centres emerges from the survey results, including:
The survey results also highlight some important intergenerational differences regarding the acceptance and use of AI and digital channels – findings that should be invaluable for financial institutions as they reinvent their contact centre offerings of the future. For example, younger cohorts are starting to turn to social media channels when they connect with their financial institutions’ customer contact teams – an option in which those aged over 65 have little interest. In a similar vein, more than half of the respondents aged 18 to 34 indicate that they will still be ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to use digital-only contact centres in the future if such a trend occurs, compared with just 20% of over-65s.
7 key takeaways
As financial institutions develop strategies to improve their contact centres, our report identifies key themes on which to act.
Our team believes such elements will shape Australian contact centres of the future as they combine the power of AI with the appropriate channels that customers want and deserve. In turn, this has the potential to improve the reputation and financial performance of businesses, while delivering better services and experiences to customers.
The most competitive financial institutions will reframe their centres not as backstops of failure, but as smart and proactive engines of customer value – blending AI, human service and emotionally intelligent design to meet rising expectations.
Michael O’Toole, Head of Customer AI at Deloitte, says financial institutions cannot afford to be complacent. “With the ROI case for the smart deployment of AI now proven and undeniable, if you’re not looking at contact centre transformation as your AI starting point – you’re probably looking in the wrong place.”
Connect with our leaders to learn more about how we are helping our financial services clients turn their contact centres into strategic growth engines through AI-enabled service models and architectures that re-engineer how people and AI work together.
