Chatbot in action – innovate customer acquisition in digital environment Qorus Banking Innovation Awards 2019- Nominated

The market saturation and the fast-developing digital environment have affected every industry, setting up a new frontier of customer expectations. Traditional banks are facing bigger than ever acquisition costs and growing regulatory restrictions (GDPR). Postbank Bulgaria operates on a fragmented market with severe competition from 25 other retail banks. As such, we are constantly searching to challenge traditional channels and find disruptive ways to increase sales and reach new customers. In 2018, we developed EVA – the first and only lending bot in Bulgaria. Stretching the limits of digital communication further, we initiated a brave mass customer acquisition campaign „Ask EVA how to double your salary”. Users go through a chat with EVA, through a click-only journey and register to win a prize. During the chat stream, they are giving us consent to initiate a call and to process data. The strong message attracted the attention of nearly half of the working population of the country - 2.3 million unique users reached over 9 weeks. With more than 10000 conversations and 5000 subscribers, we boosted user engagement and reached out to brand new customers, bringing down customer acquisition cost by 200%, compared to traditional channels. More important, over 70% of the users had a continuing interaction, over the rest of the dialogues, getting to know our lending products. The flexible technology enabled us to use a rich mix of digital channels and to develop the mechanics of the campaign within days. CRM, Sales and Marketing were the main drivers of the initiative.