{
  "id": 9635311,
  "title": "The next wave of customer engagement",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/the-next-wave-of-customer-engagement",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-24T22:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Business Times - Singapore",
    "slug": "the-business-times-singapore",
    "url": "https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/singapore/bt50/next-wave-customer-engagement"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The banking industry is undergoing a significant transformation, with OCBC at the forefront of this shift. Gone are the days when banking was solely judged on efficiency. Today, customers expect a seamless, personalized, and proactive experience from their banks. Sunny Quek, head of global consumer financial services at OCBC, emphasizes that the next phase of digital transformation lies in connecting fragmented touchpoints into one coherent experience.\n\nTo achieve this, OCBC has invested heavily in AI, Digital, and Data (ADD). In 2018, the bank set up a dedicated AI unit, laying the foundation for its innovative approach. This year, OCBC launched Avatar Banking by OCBC WoW, an AI-native wealth app featuring avatars Wendy and Wayne. These digital financial assistants provide real-time, hyper-personalized market intelligence, portfolio insights, and investment ideas through natural voice or text conversations. This marks a departure from traditional wealth management, where customers relied solely on scheduled meetings with relationship managers.\n\nOCBC's shift to proactive engagement is not just about creating another digital channel but fundamentally changing how customers engage with the bank for wealth management. By leveraging AI, digital tools, and data analytics, OCBC aims to remove friction, personalize engagement, and make banking more seamless for customers.\n\nOne of the key changes in OCBC's approach is moving from solving problems after they arise to spotting friction earlier. By using AI, digital tools, and data analytics, the bank can prevent issues from escalating. This proactive approach allows OCBC to look beyond individual incidents and analyze behavioral patterns across customer journeys, leading to a broader rethink of how experience should be measured and improved.\n\nTraditionally, OCBC has focused on customer satisfaction scores, derived from feedback provided after an interaction. However, the bank is now increasingly examining \"customer effort,\" which looks beyond whether a problem was eventually resolved to examine friction along the way. By removing obstacles such as repeating information, switching between channels, or spending unnecessary time completing a task, OCBC is redesigning journeys to become more intuitive, seamless, and convenient. This focus on customer effort is a hidden cost that, when lowered, is a stronger predictor of loyalty and advocacy than satisfaction alone. It also forces process redesign rather than surface-level service recovery.",
  "summary": "Through AI, Digital and Data, OCBC is transforming banking from transactions to predictive, proactive engagement, with seamless digital experiences reinforced by trust,...",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}