RBS Launching A Chatbot

Skip the teller line at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and just hit up the new chatbot. RBS just announced that it is launching a bot to answer customers’ questions more efficiently and online starting in December.

Oh, and the bot has a name: Luvo.

Luvo will notice when your’e browsing the RBS site and will make a chat window appear asking if you need any help.

Again, Luvo makes its debut in two months, but in the interim, a trial and battery of tests will be going on using the 1,200 staff members who handle small business inquiries.

The point of chatbots in general is to create efficiency and to speed up the process for human employees. They typically will recognize normal human language and direct messages back in response from there.

“Luvo frees advisors from spending time on simple, easily addressed queries so they can help customers with more complex issues and questions — improving the experience of both parties,” said Simon McNamara, chief administrative officer at Royal Bank of Scotland, in a statement.

It is important to note that RBS has been cutting hundreds of jobs across the business, and experts say there is likely an overlap between the tasks that these former employees performed and what Luvo is capable of.