Nationwide retrains its virtual assistant for corona enquiries

Looking for a mortgage holiday? Arti is on it.

With enquiries to high street lenders changing dramatically since the outbreak of coronavirus, now banks are retraining their digital assistants to deal with new demands.

Nationwide’s Arti virtual assistant has learnt how to deal with common mortgage holiday questions, and has supported some 10,000 customers since the end of March.

The ability was added to Arti’s roster of features just nine days after the UK government announced its mortgage holiday policy for all homeowners affected by coronavirus.

“The speed at which we delivered this new capability meant that frontline teams could spend their time dealing with more complex queries from our members,” said Beverley Bartlett, Senior Digital Manager at Nationwide.

“It means we can continue to serve our members in more ways, more quickly and effectively, but still with the added reassurance of the human touch, if needed, that our members value.”

Arti landed on the scene in 2018 as a product aimed at helping first time buyers, and in 2019 was expanded to include Nationwide’s services for older customers.

Today the virtual assistant handles all manner of questions relating to travel insurance, VISA disputes, and more, with more complex enquiries being handed over to human staff.