Citi Commercial Cards Enhances Client Satisfaction with Launch of Intelligent Virtual Agent

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Citi Commercial Cards has launched an intelligent virtual agent (“IVA”) capability within its call centers in the United States leveraging technology from Interactions, a leading conversational AI company. The introduction of the IVA is part of Citi Commercial Cards overall strategy to invest in technology that will provide a better digital servicing experience for its clients.

The IVA solution leverages Interactions’ Adaptive Understanding™ technology, which provides a blend of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and real-time human understanding to provide the highest level of modernized customer care. With the support of humans, the IVA leverages advanced conversational AI to understand languages, accents and dialects as well as to make sense of a customer’s word choice and the respective intent based on the context of the call. With the implementation of the IVA, Citi’s Commercial Card cardholders can speak in their own words and be understood without concern for background noise.

"Citi Commercial Cards is committed to providing our clients with innovative solutions, and the introduction of the intelligent virtual agent demonstrates our ongoing commitment to innovation. We are pleased to work in partnership with Artificial Intelligence (AI) leader Interactions to implement this cutting-edge solution," said Gonca Latif-Schmitt, Global Head of Citi Commercial Cards.

The IVA leverages predictive technology as part of its machine learning capabilities, meaning that it will continue to learn over time and become more intuitive with every client that it interacts with. Furthermore, the technology has a capacity for learning, reasoning and understanding, essential when providing customer service to clients.

Karen Young, North American Head of Client Operations, Citi Commercial Cards, said, "The ability to integrate natural language processing technology into our customer service offerings allows Citi to deliver a consistent, fast and still personalized client experience. We know the importance of cardholders’ preference for rapid self-service. From our pilot, we’ve seen that the implementation of the intelligent virtual agent provides our clients with enhanced customer satisfaction.” Citi Commercial Cards' Call centers will continue to be staffed with live agents in the event it is the cardholders’ preference to speak with a live agent. The combination of the intelligent virtual agent and live agents will provide cardholders with the best combination of customer service offerings.

“Citi is paving the way in the Commercial Card space by introducing the intelligent virtual agent in its call centers,” said Mike Iacobucci, CEO of Interactions. “The intelligent virtual agent is designed to deliver a truly conversational customer experience, and will ensure that Citi can engage in productive, open ended conversations with its clients.”

This new solution is being deployed in the United States for specific call types, with additional call types in other regions to follow.

Citi’s Commercial Cards business provides Travel, Purchase and Virtual cards solutions to institutional clients, including corporations, financial institutions and public sector entities. It has been recognized as a global market leader with the largest proprietary network in the industry, with local issuance in over 60 countries, 45 unique currencies and 30 languages. As a leading global commercial card issuer, Citi has one of the largest global footprints supported by unrivalled card acceptance.

Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) enables its clients' success by providing an integrated suite of innovative and tailored cash management and trade finance services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations across the globe. Based on the foundation of the industry's largest proprietary network with banking licenses in over 90 countries and globally integrated technology platforms, TTS continues to lead the way in offering the industry's most comprehensive range of digitally enabled treasury, trade and liquidity management solutions.

About Citi: Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi