Sun Life ASC India launches chatbot for its staff social-media platform

Sun Life ASC India launches chatbot for its staff social-media platform

The chatbot, Nina, has been onboarded by the Company just as any other employee so that she is accepted as a virtual colleague.

This chatbot has answered more than 1500 questions from over 500 users, since its launch in June 2020 this year. The chatbot in question is Nina, the latest launch of Sun Life’s Asia Service Centre India (ASIC), the global in-house centre of Sun Life Financial. Nina has been launched as a first for the Company’s employee social-media platform. Around 74 per cent of users reported being satisfied with her responses to their queries.

Studies have shown that chatbots can be a welcome move for companies, as they can help them save up to $8 billion every year by 2022. In today’s era, chatbots have become an essential tool for employers to keep track of their employees’ physical health and mental wellbeing, without any need for physical interaction by managers or the HR department. Moreover, chatbots are known for their ability to escalate issues to the correct authorities, in case the queries or issues cannot be resolved by the chatbot by itself.

Sun Life believes that the launch of its first chatbot on ASCI’s internal employee social- media platform is a positive move, in keeping with the digital transformation across companies. The organisation’s workforce comprises 90 per cent millenials, and clearly, it wants to keep up with the times by providing its employees a seamless experience.

The idea for a chatbot, such as Nina, came about in a technology team huddle, where the topic of discussion was how to minimise time spent on handling repeated issues or queries and increase the productivity of workers. The end result was Nina.

Currently, the chatbot is handling technology-related queries but the Company hopes to expand its role to other functions, such as administration, HR, finance and strategic content distribution as well. Sun Life has been sending out tutorials on how to use the chatbot effectively. On the first encounter, Nina assures that even though she may not have all the answers, she is a quick learner.

In the first few weeks of its launch itself, Nina has answered 3.87 questions on an average, per user.

Amit Kumar Gupta, head- technology services, ASCI, reveals that Nina is considered a virtual assistant and a member of the technology team and that she has been very positively received. The Company plans to incorporate more questions and launch it for other markets in Sun Life.

As part of the launch, Nina was inducted like a new employee according to Rajat Vibhas, head- business excellence and communications, ASC. Information was shared with the workforce about the same and today, she is considered a dependable virtual colleague who can answer any IT support-related query at any time.

About Sun Life Asia Service Centre

Sun Life Asia Service Centre (ASC) in India provides Business Processing, IT, and Investment Research shared services to Sun Life's global businesses. The 24*7 centres also offer contact centre and enterprise infrastructure to Sun Life’s businesses. ASC India and ASC Philippines work in perfect harmony to support Clients through all stages of Client and software life cycle for Sun Life in Canada, the US, and Asia. Over the years, the ASC has achieved scale and operational maturity by integrating closely with Sun Life’s corporate functions. The centres support Individual Insurance & Wealth, Group Benefits, Group Retirement Services, Document Services and Client Solutions services for Sun Life.

For additional information on Sun Life ASC, please visit: https://www.sunlife.com/asiaservicecentre

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