HSBC trials in-branch Samsung smartwatch pilot

HSBC is equipping staff members at a Manhattan branch with Samsung Gear S3 smartwatches for a pilot designed to see how mobile technology can improve employee communications and customer experiences.

A dozen employees are taking part in the pilot, which sees them strap to their wrists Gear S3s that have been specifically configured to feature an HSBC enterprise app.

When a customer enters the branch, they’re greeted by an employee who asks them how they can help. By using preset messages built into the app, the staffer at the front desk can send an instant alert to the branch associate who can best help. The associate can use their watch to reply immediately, indicating whether or not they can help.

The watches are also designed to help the branch manager keep in better touch with employees who are spread over three floors. For instance, an associate can ping the manager when they need support such as an override. The manager can also communicate with an individual or the whole team.

HSBC is planning to expand the pilot to a Dubai branch ahead of a possible wider rollout if it proves a hit in terms of technical feasibility, user adoption and changes in wait time and response time.

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HSBC

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Innovation Mobile & online banking Branch banking

Comments: (3)

Michael Fuller - None - London 25 October, 2018, 07:52

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Am I missing something or is this just an expensive pager? Will the system use the data generated to identify training needs, propose staffing shift patterns and improve information available to customers? If not its hard to see what the benefits of buying expensive Samsung kit is. The tablets which staff have can surely do this job?

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Alexander Mostowfi - Oracle Corporation - London 25 October, 2018, 08:50

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In some ways this is a bit like Pepper the robot as a greeter (which incidentally HSBC are trialing in their NY branch but other banks also trialing this kind of approach).

By triaging then alerting or scheduling an advisor if a human is required or desired should lead to a more valuable outcome in NPS or Income terms.

If one was to introduce the identity of the customer into this further prioritisation could be made (based on past interaction history / percieved future value).

Also with knowledge of advisor from their HR/Talent profile further matching could be done to most appropriate advisor.

Could be interesting to join the two concepts - use robotics , vision and customer devices to detect the customer approaching / entering, marry current with past interactions and direct accordingy to automated e.g. ATM or Smart Device enabled Human Advisor.

Watches, tablets, Robots, VR etc are in effect all just channels to customer and employee.

If your going to create cross channel, omni channel, immersive experiences for both customer and employee and deflect service where sensible/uneconomic to automated pathways and create efficient employee and customer interactions this is interesting.

This is also potentially the start of creating "digital twins" of customers and employees as smart devices generate huge amounts of data to drive intelligence from.

I wrote a couple of articles recently you might be interested in:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/robots-roaming-bank-branch-alex-mostowfi

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-twin-applications-financial-services-alex-mostowfi