Voya celebrates success of 24/7 chatbot and emerging artificial intelligence capabilities

One year since launch, Voya PAL expands upon Voya’s customer experience offerings, engaging in more than 120,000 interactions

WINDSOR, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), announced today the one-year milestone of Voya PAL, an intelligent chatbot providing customers with 24/7 service availability for their workplace benefits and savings needs. Voya PAL was introduced as part of the company’s ongoing focus on expanding customer experiences and, ultimately, to provide multiple options for customers to connect with Voya and in ways that are most helpful to them. Since its launch one year ago, Voya PAL has engaged in more than 120,000 customer interactions across Voya’s Wealth Solutions and Health Solutions businesses, and it has resolved over 70% of cases using the chatbot functionality to address customers’ questions.

“As the retirement industry continues to advance its use of digital technology, providing a continuous expansion of solutions for our customers is critical,” said Heather Lavallee, president and CEO-elect, Voya Financial. “At Voya, we are continuously optimizing and expanding our suite of digital solutions to support our customers when, where and how they need it. As we continue to build upon the customer experience with new capabilities, the launch of Voya PAL has provided a great opportunity for us to leverage the latest advancements in technology to not only elevate the customer experience but, ultimately, help drive better outcomes as a result.”

With advancements in conversational artificial intelligence (AI), the use of digital assistants and chatbots in various industries, including financial services, continues to increase. Offering 24/7, fast and efficient information, chatbots use AI to hold real-time conversations with customers, enhancing the customer experience by providing convenient and direct engagement with individuals. Proving the growing interest in this capability, according to Voya’s data, in the third quarter of 2022 alone, there were nearly 50,000 Voya PAL chat engagements with nearly three-quarters (72%) fully resolved via the chatbot experience.¹

How PAL works

Voya PAL’s capabilities include leveraging real-time AI that enables the chatbot to quickly understand customer intent and provide an easy, intuitive interaction experience to them. Specifically, Voya plan participants are offered a pre-login chat experience that serves as an efficient digital interaction. Participants who have authenticated on the website can utilize the chatbot to make changes and get assistance with certain transactions — similar to their experience with live agents over the phone or in chat. Notably, in the two months since additional AI capability was released, PAL has increased Voya’s self-service rate from 70% to 85%.

Building on the initial success, Voya remains focused on building out the experience with future enhancements to include:

• CSA support: Using Voya PAL to gather information for customer service associates (CSAs) while the CSA is on a call with a customer, enabling CSAs to engage more with customers while Voya PAL does the work of navigating systems behind the scenes and presenting that information to the CSA to help them resolve a customer’s inquiry.
• myVoyage: Using Voya PAL within Voya’s myVoyage, a first-of-its-kind personalized financial-guidance and connected workplace-benefits digital platform, to help customers navigate the process and answer their frequently asked questions.

“Voya is committed to investing in the latest digital technologies as a way to distinguish our customer experience from all others,” said Santhosh Keshavan, EVP and chief information officer, Voya Financial. “We continually work to anticipate and identify opportunities to leverage digital platforms to provide experiences that reflect the specific needs of our customers. Voya PAL offers yet another alternative for individuals to seek answers to their questions and find resolution to their needs — and as more customers engage with our digital assistant, Voya PAL is using AI capabilities to consume more data, learn more scenarios and become even more in tune to customer needs.”

Voya PAL builds on the company’s continued focus and investments in digital solutions that help improve the financial outcomes of all individuals. Most recently, the firm introduced the launch of myVoyage, a one-stop solution providing individuals with a complete view of their financial picture, inclusive of workplace benefits and savings accounts along with the integration of external accounts such as personal banking and credit accounts to help better manage one’s health and financial well-being.

As an industry leader focused on the delivery of workplace benefits, savings, and investment solutions to and through the workplace, Voya is committed to delivering on its mission to make a secure financial future possible for all Americans — one person, one family, one institution at a time.

1. Voya internal data as of Sept. 30, 2022.

About Voya Financial^®

Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA) is a leading health, wealth and investment company that provides products, solutions and technologies that enable a better financial future for its clients, customers and society. Serving the needs of 14.3 million individual, workplace and institutional clients, Voya has approximately 6,000 employees and had $711 billion in total assets under management and administration as of Sept. 30, 2022. Certified as a “Great Place to Work” by the Great Place to Work® Institute, Voya is purpose-driven and equally committed to conducting business in a way that is socially, environmentally, economically and ethically responsible. Voya has earned recognition as: one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies® by the Ethisphere Institute; a member of the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index; and a “Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion” on the Disability Equality Index. For more information, visit voya.com. For more information, visit voya.com. Follow Voya Financial on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter @Voya.

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