Taking a cue from insurance industry, IDFC Mutual Fund has launched a chatbot facility through which existing investors can ask queries related to mutual funds and transact in both regular plans and direct plans of the fund house. Existing investors can use ‘Ask Bugs’, a chat interface, on its website to resolve queries and transact.
Earlier, HDFC Life and Birla Sun Life have launched chatbot facility for life insurance queries and distribution. Taking over the traditional customer service functions, chatbots essentially answer queries on mutual funds and educate customers on various schemes.
This facility is available on both the Desktop and Mobile versions of the IDFC MF website.
In a press release, the company said, “The ‘Ask Bugs’ chat service relies on Natural Language Processing (NLP) which has a complex underlying algorithm that emulates human conversation. ChatBot based queries and transactions use the NLP engine to intelligently provide relevant data and interpret instructions and requests to execute transactions. The interface helps in speedier processing while being very user-friendly. It also intelligently infers solutions and interprets requests, which may or may not have been created previously. The end result is a simplified transaction experience, with minimal time and efforts.”
Vishal Kapoor, CEO, IDFC MF said, “With ‘Ask Bugs’, existing investors will now have the additional choice of transacting through a Chat interface on the IDFC MF website, with the flexibility of multiple payment options. IDFC Mutual Fund has been at the forefront in deploying facilities that simplify the investment process. We believe customers will be more comfortable using simple words rather than remembering pre-defined syntaxes to transact or working through traditional website formats that require site-navigation and selection from drop-down menus.”
The investor needs a PAN and Mobile no. and then based on OTP authentication, a transaction can be completed. Investors can use this option for making purchases, redemptions and switches in their folio. Payment can be made using Internet Banking, UPI or the bank One Time Mandate.
