Singapore-based peer-to-peer crowd-funding platform Funding Societies has launched a chatbot known as Miyu to answer queries about its services.
Funding Societies operates across Southeast Asia and the chatbot answers queries that a business owner or an investor may ask about products and services that are on offer.
Kelvin Teo, co-founder and chief executive of Funding Societies, said that while live chat was supported on the site during standard business hours, more than a fifth of queries came in during evenings and weekends, especially from would-be investors from overseas.
"Since inception, we've promised to help SMEs and investors through crowd-funding and innovation," Teo said. "Our chatbot is another step in innovation and aims to deliver almost human-like customer experience 24/7.”
{loadposition sam08}The aim of using a chatbot was to interact with prospective customers in a light-hearted way, and increase awareness and confidence in crowd-funding among SMEs and investors.
Future plans for Miyu include acting as a virtual relationship manager to assist SMEs in loan applications, and helping investors navigate through the platform.
The company also plans to use the chatbot to initiate video chats with real customer experience managers and perform account opening and management activities such as investments, deposits, and withdrawals without human intervention at any time of day.
Funding Societies won the Fintech Award given by the Monetary Authority of Singapore last year in the SME category. It was also named 2017’s No. 1 Hottest Start-up in Singapore by Singapore Business Review.
The company was recently recognised as the Best in Customer Experience for Alternative Financial Services in Asia by Retail Banker International and named one of the Top 250 FinTech companies globally by CB Insights.